Born in Brooklyn, Eric Erickson (William Holden) is a naturalized Swedish businessman neutral enough to deal with both the Germans and Allies, until he discovers his name on a published list of Nazi sympathizers...
Shocked and angry, he soon discovers that his inclusion on that list is a device to force him to work for British Intelligence whose representative, a sarcastic Collins (Hugh Griffith), he meets at the Stockholm Grand Hotel...
Collins not only admits the blackmail, but compounds it by having the conversation taped to enforce Eric's cooperation, since the Swedes strongly value their neutrality...
Disarmed as well as astonished by Collins' cynicism, Eric has to agree to become a spy, while the spy master, between courses of his luncheon, admits he would 'deal with thieves, liars, procurers, traitors, and sluts' to get the job done...
Not only must Eric supply information on the German oil industry, he also has to act the part of someone on the Allied blacklist...
Despite his real sympathies, Eric must make spiteful remarks about the Allies, and more importantly, has to drop sneering remarks about Jews and to insult publicly his Jewish best friend within hearing of the German ambassador...
The friendship with the Third Reich's diplomat is needed to secure official sanction for Eric's plan to construct German oil refineries in Swedenthe means by which he is to secure the information the Allies want... Eric not only humors the optimal negotiator, he also promises him a share in the company he is forming and charmingly pays him the money lost in weekly bridge games...
Eric begins his frequent business trips to Germany with a gala reception during which he makes contact with another agent, an irresistible woman with whom he is to pretend to have an affair, Mariana (Lilli Palmer).
Mariana, wife of a high-ranking German officer, is both an idealist and an efficient spy... She would embrace and kiss Eric for the sake of any Gestapo man trailing them and then shake hands before getting down to the business of encoding messages... Her shock at Eric's selfish reasons for being a spy contrasted with her own, a firmly loyal belief in the Catholic religion to fight the Anti-Christ, Hitler... In perhaps the film's most moving scene, she tells Eric that 'one must not think of the war simply in terms of hundreds of tanks and thousand of planes and units of men, like some sort of wrestling match on a gigantic scale... but in terms of a single truck on its way to a concentration camp and what's shivering inside in.'
Unlike many other spy films set during the war, 'The Counterfeit Traitor' stressed the personal and emotional cost of espionage: Eric, the spy-against-his-will, had not only to forsake his wife and friends who were upset by his apparent Nazi sympathies, he had also to witness Nazi atrocities...
George Seaton's 'The Counterfeit Traitor' is sobering to a remarkable degree, mostly when Marianne discovers she has given her confession not to a priest; the questioning of Eric in Berlin's basement cell; Hitler Youth member Hans Holtz stealing Eric's briefcase with incriminating letter; and Eric's confrontation with Gestapo man Jaeger...
Shocked and angry, he soon discovers that his inclusion on that list is a device to force him to work for British Intelligence whose representative, a sarcastic Collins (Hugh Griffith), he meets at the Stockholm Grand Hotel...
Collins not only admits the blackmail, but compounds it by having the conversation taped to enforce Eric's cooperation, since the Swedes strongly value their neutrality...
Disarmed as well as astonished by Collins' cynicism, Eric has to agree to become a spy, while the spy master, between courses of his luncheon, admits he would 'deal with thieves, liars, procurers, traitors, and sluts' to get the job done...
Not only must Eric supply information on the German oil industry, he also has to act the part of someone on the Allied blacklist...
Despite his real sympathies, Eric must make spiteful remarks about the Allies, and more importantly, has to drop sneering remarks about Jews and to insult publicly his Jewish best friend within hearing of the German ambassador...
The friendship with the Third Reich's diplomat is needed to secure official sanction for Eric's plan to construct German oil refineries in Swedenthe means by which he is to secure the information the Allies want... Eric not only humors the optimal negotiator, he also promises him a share in the company he is forming and charmingly pays him the money lost in weekly bridge games...
Eric begins his frequent business trips to Germany with a gala reception during which he makes contact with another agent, an irresistible woman with whom he is to pretend to have an affair, Mariana (Lilli Palmer).
Mariana, wife of a high-ranking German officer, is both an idealist and an efficient spy... She would embrace and kiss Eric for the sake of any Gestapo man trailing them and then shake hands before getting down to the business of encoding messages... Her shock at Eric's selfish reasons for being a spy contrasted with her own, a firmly loyal belief in the Catholic religion to fight the Anti-Christ, Hitler... In perhaps the film's most moving scene, she tells Eric that 'one must not think of the war simply in terms of hundreds of tanks and thousand of planes and units of men, like some sort of wrestling match on a gigantic scale... but in terms of a single truck on its way to a concentration camp and what's shivering inside in.'
Unlike many other spy films set during the war, 'The Counterfeit Traitor' stressed the personal and emotional cost of espionage: Eric, the spy-against-his-will, had not only to forsake his wife and friends who were upset by his apparent Nazi sympathies, he had also to witness Nazi atrocities...
George Seaton's 'The Counterfeit Traitor' is sobering to a remarkable degree, mostly when Marianne discovers she has given her confession not to a priest; the questioning of Eric in Berlin's basement cell; Hitler Youth member Hans Holtz stealing Eric's briefcase with incriminating letter; and Eric's confrontation with Gestapo man Jaeger...