Vintage 1966 Aux Ordres du Fuhrer / Triple Cross Belgian Movie Poster 🎬 Plummer, Schneider, Brynner, Terence Young

🎬 A Poster in Three Languages for a Spy Who Played Both Sides

A film called Triple Cross, about a London safecracker who took money from both sides of a war, and a Belgian poster for it that speaks three languages. The title is printed in French, AUX ORDRES DU FÜHRER, and in Flemish, ONDER FÜHRERSBEVEL. The credit lines are Italian: "Un film diretto da TERENCE YOUNG" and "EASTMANCOLOR - SCHERMO PANORAMICO." Across the top, on a hot-pink band, run the three stars: ROMY SCHNEIDER · YUL BRYNNER · CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER.

This is an original Belgian cinema poster, 22 x 14 inches, for Terence Young's 1966 film of the true story of Eddie Chapman, the criminal MI5 ran as the double agent Zigzag. It was held back by a Belgian film distributor and has stayed with that distributor's surviving stock ever since, saved before the history on these sheets could be scattered and lost.

🔍 What Is Printed on the Sheet

The poster is laid out landscape. At left, a montage of five halftone portraits of the cast (two women, a younger man, an older man in a peaked cap, and at the centre an officer in a peaked cap) sits over a battlefield of soldiers and smoke. The whole panel is printed in bands of red, blue, orange, yellow and green, and the halftone dots are coarse enough to see from arm's length, which gives the faces a grainy, pop-art punch.

At right, the director's credit heads the column. The French title sits on a red block, the Flemish title on a block that fades from red to yellow, and on a yellow band below come the supporting names, TREVOR HOWARD · GERT FROEBE · CLAUDINE AUGER, with "EASTMANCOLOR - SCHERMO PANORAMICO" underneath. Beside them is the round blue mark of LES FILMS DU DRAGON: an open-jawed dragon coiled inside the lettering.

🇮🇹 Half a Title, and the Italian on the Page

The film went out under a different name almost everywhere it played. In France it opened on 9 December 1966 as La Fantastique Histoire vraie d'Eddie Chapman, "The Fantastic True Story of Eddie Chapman." In West Germany it was Spion zwischen zwei Fronten, "Spy Between Two Fronts." In Britain and America it was Triple Cross. Italy's title was the longest and the most pointed: Agli ordini del Führer e al servizio di Sua Maestà, "At the Führer's Orders and in the Service of His Majesty," both halves of Chapman's double life in one line.

The Belgian title on this sheet is the first half of that Italian one. Aux ordres du Führer translates as "At the Führer's Orders." The Flemish Onder Führersbevel says the same. Next to it, the credits are still in Italian. "Un film diretto da" is "a film directed by," and "Schermo panoramico" is "widescreen." French, Flemish and Italian on one piece of paper, for a film about a man who kept two masters guessing.

🕵️ The Real Eddie Chapman

Eddie Chapman was a safecracker who worked with London's West End gangs and did several stretches in prison for it. He was locked up on Jersey when German forces invaded the Channel Islands in June 1940. After a letter he concocted in German, he was moved to Fort de Romainville in Paris, and there he confirmed he was willing to spy for Germany. The German military intelligence service, the Abwehr, trained him in explosives, radio work and parachute jumping at the Château de la Bretonnière near Nantes, and knew him as "Fritz," or "Fritzchen."

On 16 December 1942 he was flown to Britain in a German bomber. He missed his target and came down near Littleport in Cambridgeshire, where he gave himself up to the local police and offered his services to MI5. The British named him Agent Zigzag. His German handlers were led to believe he had sabotaged the de Havilland aircraft works, and they rewarded him for it. He lived until 11 December 1997.

🎥 The Film and the People Who Made It

Triple Cross was a British and French production, shot in London, in Paris and at the Victorine Studios in Nice. Its source was the book Chapman wrote with Frank Owen, The Eddie Chapman Story (1953). After its French opening it reached the rest of Europe and the United States in 1967.

The director, Terence Young, had made the first two James Bond films, Dr. No (1962) and From Russia with Love (1963), then Thunderball (1965). He was also a war veteran, an intelligence officer with the Guards Armoured Division who was wounded during Operation Market Garden in 1944. He had crossed paths with the real Chapman twice, once before the war and again during the Liberation of France.

The cast on this poster:

• Christopher Plummer as Eddie Chapman, coming off The Sound of Music (1965).
• Yul Brynner as Colonel Baron von Grunen.
• Romy Schneider as the Countess.
• Trevor Howard as Freddie Young.
• Gert Fröbe, printed here as FROEBE, as Colonel Steinhäger, two years after he played the villain in Goldfinger (1964).
• Claudine Auger as Paulette, the year after Thunderball.

That is a Bond director and two Bond-film veterans on one sheet, telling a spy story that actually happened.

📖 The Man Who Couldn't Get Into His Own Film

Here is the story that goes with this film. Christopher Plummer wrote in his memoir that Chapman was meant to serve as technical adviser on the production. The French authorities would not let him into the country, because he was still wanted over an alleged plot to kidnap Sultan Mohammed V of Morocco. The real double agent, in other words, was kept out of France while a film crew there turned his life into a thriller. Chapman was disappointed with the film, which is only loosely based on what really happened. The truth was stranger than the script.

🇧🇪 Why Belgian Cinema Posters Are Collected

Belgium is a country of two main languages, and its cinema posters were printed for both, with the French title and the Flemish (Dutch) title sharing the sheet. The 22 x 14 inch size is the format most Belgian posters turn up in, printed either upright or, like this one, landscape. Belgian distributors often produced poster art of their own instead of simply reusing another country's campaign, and that is a big reason collectors go after them.

📜 From the Cosmopolis Films Archive

This sheet comes from the archive of the now defunct Belgian distributor Cosmopolis Films, and that archive has been kept together in one collection since 2007. 2007 is the year the collection was saved. It is not a printing date. The mark printed on the poster's own face is that of Les Films du Dragon.

A cinema poster was never meant to last. It was trade material, sent out to theatres, pinned up for the run of a film and then thrown away when the next booking came in. Very few were ever sold to the public. Clean, unused copies survive mostly because a distributor held stock back, and a preserved distributor archive like this one is effectively the only source for a sheet in this state. That is what makes it rare.

🖼️ Size and Condition

A single sheet, 22 x 14 inches, landscape. The printing is bright and clean, with the pinks, greens and oranges still strong and the black lettering sharp. There is little to no wear, with only minor edge toning that stays off the image. It has not been backed or restored. It is offered exactly as pictured.

🎁 Good For

• 🎬 Collectors of Terence Young and James Bond-related cinema. This is the film Young made right after Thunderball.
• ⭐ Fans of Christopher Plummer, Romy Schneider or Yul Brynner, all three billed on top.
• 🕵️ Anyone who collects spy and Second World War film posters, or who has read about Agent Zigzag.
• 🇧🇪 Collectors of Belgian and European film posters. French, Flemish and Italian all appear on this one sheet.
• 🖼️ A wall that needs a landscape poster. The 22 x 14 horizontal layout fits over a desk, a sofa or a bar where an upright one-sheet will not.

❓ Questions People Ask

Is this an original poster or a reprint?

Original. This sheet is unused stock from Cosmopolis Films, a Belgian distributor that has since closed, and it was never a modern reprint.

What film is it for?

Triple Cross (1966), directed by Terence Young, with Christopher Plummer, Romy Schneider, Yul Brynner, Trevor Howard, Gert Fröbe and Claudine Auger. Its Belgian titles are Aux ordres du Führer in French and Onder Führersbevel in Flemish.

Why is some of the text in Italian?

The director credit and the widescreen colour credit were set in Italian. Italy released the film under a title that begins Agli ordini del Führer, and the Belgian French title matches those opening words.

Is the story true?

Eddie Chapman was real. He was a British safecracker who spied for German intelligence and secretly worked for MI5 as Agent Zigzag. The film takes a lot of liberties with his story, and Chapman himself was disappointed with it.

How big is it?

22 x 14 inches, in a horizontal (landscape) layout.

What does the 2007 date mean?

That is the year the Cosmopolis Films archive was saved and kept together as one collection. It has nothing to do with when the poster was printed.