Triple Cross

Triple Cross is a 1966 Anglo-French World War II spy film directed by Terence Young and produced by Jacques-Paul Bertrand. It was released in France in December 1966 as La Fantastique Histoire Vraie d'Eddie Chapman, but elsewhere in Europe and the United States in 1967 as Terence Young's Triple Cross. It was filmed in Eastman Color, print by Technicolor. Triple Cross was based loosely on the real-life story of Eddie Chapman, believed by the Nazis to be their top spy in Great Britain, although he was actually an MI5 double agent known as "Zigzag". The title of the film comes from Chapman's signature to mark he was freely transmitting by radio, a Morse code XXX. Another meaning of the title "Triple Cross" becomes clear in the final scene of the film. Chapman, sitting at a bar, is asked who he was really working for. In reply, he raises his glass in salute to his reflection in the mirror. Triple Cross is the second pairing of Terence Young and actress Claudine Auger. She was the leading James Bond girl in Thunderball (1965), which Young also directed. Plot In late 1930s London, debonair safecracker Eddie Chapman pulls off a series of heists but is caught and convicted while vacationing on the channel island of Jersey, where he is imprisoned. Months later, war commences and Jersey is occupied by German forces. Chapman offers them his services. Because of his unique qualifications, they accept. After faking his execution, the Germans smuggle Chapman into occupied France where, working closely with his handler, Col. Baron von Grunen, he is trained as a spy. He becomes romantically involved with a colleague known only as the Countess. But he is closely watched by ex-policeman Col. Steinhager, von Grunen's immediate subordinate.