Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner in classy B-movie mode prior to the veteran filmmaker's ascendency to such A-list properties as Planet of the Apes (1968) and Patton (1970), The Double Man is a solid programmer meant to do a week's business before being replaced by something else equally professional, entertaining and disposable. (The film was sent into general release on a double bill with Lamont Johnson's Kona Coast, 1968.) The production went before the cameras around the same time as Eon's You Only Live Twice (beating it to the box office by three months in 1967) - in fact, Sean Connery posed with Brynner for a photo op at Pinewood Studios during filming in July 1966 - and also got the jump on the Bond series next entry, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), by setting its action against a backdrop of ski slope chic. Padding through his role(s) with an economy of emotion, Brynner is believable in man of action mode yet equally persuasive in a quiet moment set on a movie train in which his character examines the bloody parka taken from the body of his dead son and deduces that the boy's death was no accident.
The Double Man went into production as Legacy of a Spy, the title of Henry S. Maxfield's source novel. The slim volume had garnered praise from both The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times upon publication in 1958, with critic Robert Kirsch branding Maxfield as "better than Ian Fleming." Though the novel was considered state of the art for its time, the concept of a protagonist haunted by his exact double was a conceit that dated at least as far back as the Gothic novel, with advancements and variations leading from there to Edgar Allan Poe's "William Wilson" and Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Evil twins and duplicates were a popular trope during the 1960s. A faux 007 was killed as part of a SPECTRE training exercise early into From Russia with Love (1963) while secret agent Napoleon Solo and soldier of fortune Roger "Race" Cannon were both guyed by enemy agents in episodes of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and Jonny Quest. A duplicate President of the United States was a plot point of In Like Flint (1967) and lookalikes bedeviled the leads of such popular American TV series as Star Trek, Bewitched, The Wild Wild West, and even Bonanza.
The Double Man benefits from vivid supporting performances by Clive Revill (as Brynner's possibly unreliable partner), Lloyd Nolan (as a wheelchair-bound CIA executive), Anton Diffring (Brynner's equal in icy disaffection), and Britt Ekland, whose then-husband Peter Sellers (with whom she had just appeared in the failed spoof Casino Royale [1967], also concerned with multiple bogus Bonds) was convinced she was having an affair with her leading man. Also worth noting are the fleeting contributions of Kenneth J. Warren, Ronald Radd, David Healy (also in You Only Live Twice and, later, Diamonds Are Forever, 1971) and, in an uncredited bit, Irish actress Bee Duffell (who had made an impression the year before as an unrepentant bibliophile who chooses to be burned alive with her books in Francois Truffaut's Fahrenheit 451, 1966). Though The Double Man relies heavily on process shots, the cinematography of Denys Coop (Billy Liar [1963], Bunny Lake Is Missing [1965]) gives location footage a sense of natural majesty while Ernie Freeman's punchy jazz score tips the proceedings occasionally in the direction of Cold War kitsch.
Producer: Hal E. Chester
Director: Franklin J. Schaffner
Writers: Frank Tarloff, Alfred Hayes (based on a novel by Henry S. Maxfield)
Music: Ernie Freeman
Cinematography: Denys Coop
Editor: Richard Best
Art Direction: Arthur Lawson
Cast: Yul Brynner (Dan Slater/Kalmar), Clive Revill (Frank Wheatley), Britt Ekland (Gina), Anton Diffring (Berthold), Moira Lister (Mrs. Carrington), Lloyd Nolan (Edwards), George Mikell (Max), Brandon Brady (Gregori), Julia Arnall (Anna), David Bauer (Miller), Ronald Radd (General), Kenneth J. Warren (Police Chief), David Healy (Halstead), Bee Duffell (Woman on Train), Franklin J. Schaffner (Man at Train Station).
C-105m.
by Richard Harland Smith
