***SPOILERS***A stoic and unemotional Yul Brynner as US Government secret Agent Dan Slater is determined to find out the circumstances of his 16 year old son Bobby's, David Scheur, death in a skying accident off the Austrian Alps. Not for a moment believing the official story that Bobby's death was an accident Slater despite being told by his boss in the CIA the wheelchair bound Edwards, Lloyd Noland, to lay off and get the first flight back to the US he goes on his own to find the person or persons he believes are responsible for Bobby's death. And in his own way, without arrest trial or jury, terminate them! Getting his former and now retired partner in the CIA Frank Wheatley, Clive Revill, to help him in finding Bobby's killer doesn't at first seem like a good idea on Slater's part. Wheatley has not only given up both his gun, he refuses to use one, as well as violence becoming a meek and peaceful ski instructor who taught Bobby how to ski! Which in Slater's suspicious mind feels he may well have been the person who gave Bobby the push that shoved him off the mountain that ended up killing him!
There's also the beautiful Gina, Britt Ekland, who was the last person to see Bobby alive as well, in Slater's mind, as the person who may also have killed him. Taking off the silk gloves if he was ever wearing them Slater later brutally manhandled Gina at the ski lodge just for fun then for getting information out of her. That in retaliation has her almost ending up scratching his eyes out! That later proves if he's really in fact Slater or***MAJOR SPOILER***the person impersonating him! You see Slater isn't Slater but a Soviet like Manchurian Candidate who's to be planted in the CIA, as Slater, as a major mole for the KGB! With the real Slater being held hostage until his services for the KGB, in staying alive, are no longer needed!
***SPOILERS*** Yul Brynner is very effective in both roles as Slater and his KGB impersonator Kalmar and the action scenes in the movie rival or even suppress any of the at that time, in the mid 1960's, James Bonds films that "The Double Man" is copying off. The movie is all action and suspense and lacks the emotionless and mechanical like sex and romance that the then James Bond films with Sean Connery have. Brynner does almost the impossible in playing the bad guy in both his roles as Slater and Kalmer with Slater, who supposed to be the good guy, the far worse of the two! In fact in a scene where Slater, who's really Kalmer, brutally works over Gina it's Slater, who's face wasn't stretched by Gina, who told his shocked and confused partner Wheatley who at the time didn't quite know which one, Slater or Kalamer, to shoot that if he worked her over she not have been alive to scratch him!
There's also the beautiful Gina, Britt Ekland, who was the last person to see Bobby alive as well, in Slater's mind, as the person who may also have killed him. Taking off the silk gloves if he was ever wearing them Slater later brutally manhandled Gina at the ski lodge just for fun then for getting information out of her. That in retaliation has her almost ending up scratching his eyes out! That later proves if he's really in fact Slater or***MAJOR SPOILER***the person impersonating him! You see Slater isn't Slater but a Soviet like Manchurian Candidate who's to be planted in the CIA, as Slater, as a major mole for the KGB! With the real Slater being held hostage until his services for the KGB, in staying alive, are no longer needed!
***SPOILERS*** Yul Brynner is very effective in both roles as Slater and his KGB impersonator Kalmar and the action scenes in the movie rival or even suppress any of the at that time, in the mid 1960's, James Bonds films that "The Double Man" is copying off. The movie is all action and suspense and lacks the emotionless and mechanical like sex and romance that the then James Bond films with Sean Connery have. Brynner does almost the impossible in playing the bad guy in both his roles as Slater and Kalmer with Slater, who supposed to be the good guy, the far worse of the two! In fact in a scene where Slater, who's really Kalmer, brutally works over Gina it's Slater, who's face wasn't stretched by Gina, who told his shocked and confused partner Wheatley who at the time didn't quite know which one, Slater or Kalamer, to shoot that if he worked her over she not have been alive to scratch him!