Post by teleadm on Oct 5, 2018 17:32:17 GMT
A game distracted me yesterday, so this comes a day later:
Triple Cross 1966, directed by Terence Young, based on a book by Frank Owen about the real Eddie Chapman during WWII, staring Christopher Plummer, Yul Brynner, Romy Schneider, Trevor Howard, Gert Fröbe, Claudine Auger and others.
British-French-West German espionage drama. During WW2, convicted bank robber Eddie Chapman (Plummer) who becomes a triple agent working for both the British and the Germans and himself.
The trouble with this co-production is that it never finds it's style, it points in too many directions. In some old movie guides Plummer get's the blame for why this doesn't work, I think on the contrary, he works very hard to keep this production together, and on the right level, Plummer was offcourse hot property after The Sound of Music. Some horrible dubbing makes it feel like a cliché war movie. Brynner is Brynner (his career was slowly going downhill by now) and goes on routine, beautiful Schneider is wasted, Howard does his standard gruffy man. Director Terence Young is a very uneven director, and this is when he is uneven, some great scenes and too many standard scenes. Though all my complaints, it's still worth seeing at least once, if only for the stars.
I loaned this DVD from a friend. On the cover it states that Alfred Hitchcock wanted to do this story, but Jacques-Paul Bertrand (producer of this movie) bought the rights first, any truth in that? I don't know.
Original version is supposed to be 140 minutes, the one I watched was 120 minutes, but it might explain some jumps.
Triple Cross 1966, directed by Terence Young, based on a book by Frank Owen about the real Eddie Chapman during WWII, staring Christopher Plummer, Yul Brynner, Romy Schneider, Trevor Howard, Gert Fröbe, Claudine Auger and others.
British-French-West German espionage drama. During WW2, convicted bank robber Eddie Chapman (Plummer) who becomes a triple agent working for both the British and the Germans and himself.
The trouble with this co-production is that it never finds it's style, it points in too many directions. In some old movie guides Plummer get's the blame for why this doesn't work, I think on the contrary, he works very hard to keep this production together, and on the right level, Plummer was offcourse hot property after The Sound of Music. Some horrible dubbing makes it feel like a cliché war movie. Brynner is Brynner (his career was slowly going downhill by now) and goes on routine, beautiful Schneider is wasted, Howard does his standard gruffy man. Director Terence Young is a very uneven director, and this is when he is uneven, some great scenes and too many standard scenes. Though all my complaints, it's still worth seeing at least once, if only for the stars.
I loaned this DVD from a friend. On the cover it states that Alfred Hitchcock wanted to do this story, but Jacques-Paul Bertrand (producer of this movie) bought the rights first, any truth in that? I don't know.
Original version is supposed to be 140 minutes, the one I watched was 120 minutes, but it might explain some jumps.