TRIPLE CROSS may have seemed like a sure bet when production got under way. The Second World War, the fray that never stops giving, offers a ‘fact-based’ (liberties loom large) story, this time about a spy (the mid-60’s craze for espionage in full bloom) with personnel—director and supporting players—vetted from 007 adventures, and a suave leading man, Christopher Plummer, fresh off a titanic hit in The Sound Of Music. In this 1967 plod, he doesn’t resist Nazis or scoot his merry brood over the Alps to flee them. He works for them, or pretends to.

Nabbed in Britain in the late 1930s, safecracker and all-round cheerful louse Eddie Chapman (Plummer) is jailed on the channel island of Jersey. Not long after the war kicks off, Germany grabs the island and Eddie volunteers to help them. Trained for espionage by urbane ‘Col. Baron von Grunen’ (Yul Brynner), after he’s dropped back in England on a mission he turns tables once again and goes to work for the Brits as a double agent.

René Hardy’s screenplay was loosely lifted off “The Real Eddie Chapman Story”, co-written by Chapman (a wee self-serving?) and Frank Owen: too many cooks ladling the brew turned out stale ale, of interest mainly for c0mpletist fans of some of the likable actors. Terence Young directed: a colorful character, as a director he was all over the map, from excellent (Dr. No,From Russia With Love, Thunderball, Wait Until Dark) to execrable (The Klansman, Inchon, Bloodline). Triple Cross lands in the middle: watchable, forgettable.

The handling is too lightweight to be convincing; Plummer’s far from his best; apart from the off-the-rack uniforms, there’s not much period effort (the women’s hairstyles are two decades off base); its too sluggish at 140 minutes. Plugging away in service of craft & commerce are Romy Schneider, Trevor Howard, Gert Fröbe and Claudine Auger. Along with Young at the helm and the casting of Fröbe (aka Goldfinger), and Auger (Thunderball), the music score done by Georges  Garvarentz is more appropriate for a Bond-style movie than something set in WW2.

Yul, having lost drawing clout with a clutch of box office clunks (Taras Bulba, Kings Of The Sun, Flight From Ashiya, Morituri) down-sized (bills to pay) with lesser lights: the wan sequel Return Of The Seven and glorified cameos in this, The Poppy Is Also A Flower (also Young) and Cast A Giant Shadow. He makes the best impression in the cast, seconded by Fröbe.

In Plummer’s jolly autobio “In Spite Of Myself”, he cites that at least the making of the film was a good deal of fun, thanks to Young’s flair for extravagance and general joie de vivre.

Critics yawned, audiences failed to materialize: box office in the States was a whispered $1,100,000, 122nd place for the year. With Jess Hahn, Anthony Dawson (another Young 007 alumnus, from Dr. No) and Gordon Jackson.