If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

The acting in this movie is really good.

It's WWII. Former American Eric Erickson (William Holden) is blacklisted by the US for importing oil from Germany while living in neutral Sweden. He gave up his US Citizenship back in 1930. He's approached by Collins to spy on the Germans in exchange for getting out of the blacklist. He comes up with a fantasy to build refineries in Sweden for Germany to infiltrate the Nazi world using his friend Baron von Oldenburg. Collins keeps pushing him to gather intel and recruit others. He is surprised to find his contact in Germany is the Nazi fanatic Marianne Möllendorf. He recruits the Baron by blackmailing him through his POW son in Russia. He recruits refinery manager Otto Holtz by giving him a letter despite his fanatical young boy. Wilhelm Kortner discovers his espionage but Eric turns the table and blackmails him instead.It's based on the real Eric Erickson. It has some interesting espionage bits and some great scenes. I would really like to lose the narration although I understand the need to explain his inner thoughts. There is just too much narration especially in the beginning and it doesn't stop. It's also a long movie that could be tightened up. It needs to maintain a higher level of tension all the way through. However the real spy story is very compelling and the movie is able to translate some of that onto the screen.

One of my favorite William Holden performances is in The Counterfeit Traitor where Holden plays an American born Swedish businessman who agrees to spy for British Intelligence after a bit of blackmail.The offer he can't refuse comes after Holden is put on a list of undesirable businessmen who are doing business with the Germans. Holden is American born, but became a Swedish subject after deciding he would be working and living out of Stockholm. By agreeing to spy Holden will get cleared after the Allies win the war presumably.Holden proves to be quite useful to the Allies giving them all kinds of information about where Nazi war production is so it can be targeted by Allied bombing. Of course each trip from Sweden to Germany brings new risk as the Gestapo is cracking down on traitors.One of his contacts is Lilli Palmer, a prominent society woman with whom he begins an affair. Palmer was a refugee herself from Nazi Germany and she brings that dimension to her part that can't be imitated. Alfred Hitchcock probably could have made this film a classic, still and all George Seaton who wrote and directed can't be faulted for the job he did. Holden and Seaton had worked well together before in The Country Girl and Seaton gets good performances from him and the rest of the cast.Hugh Griffith is very good as the cynical British agent who is Holden's contact who is not above using any means to defeat the Nazis. I also liked Werner Peters the German actor who played a really terrific variety of Nazi types throughout the Sixties and who is suspicious of Holden from the gitgo.But the best scenes in the film involve young Helo Gutschwager who is the son of one of Holden's German contacts and a true believing member of the Hitler Youth. First Holden to escape and then Gestapo agent Stefan Schnabel to apprehend Holden play some real mind games on this kid who has grown up with Hitler the only reality he knows.The Counterfeit Traitor is one fine espionage film and definitely in the top ten of William Holden's performances.

There are some prerequisites for appreciating this excellent movie: 1.You need the attention span sufficient for the plot--e.g., more thanSesame Street.2.You need some basic understanding of World War II--no not everyone was equally guilty.3. You need the essential capacity for sentiment.4. You need the appreciation of love as more than some play in the sheets.The ultimate change in character of the opportunistic businessman of useful connections trapped in an espionage role finally into a selflessly committed one is great.

I'm torn over this movie. I remembered seeing it years ago on TV and was blown away by it, so when I saw the DVD was available, I bought it. And despite remembering basically what happens through the movie, I still found myself engrossed in it. But it took some doing, that's for sure.To begin with, it now irritates the hell out of me to see a movie that is set in the forties having women dressed in modern clothes, even though I know it was common in the 50's and 60's for movies to do that (up to BONNIE & CLYDE, basically). The worst example of this is IN HARM'S WAY, that has one woman in a near mini skirt even though it's supposed to be taking place the night before Pearl Harbor. Well, you got that in this one -- Lillie Palmer decked out in the latest fashions of 1962, even though the movie's set twenty years earlier. It's a glaring fault that makes it hard to take the story seriously.Second is the incessant voice over that tells us what we're seeing and how we should be feeling about it. Hate that.Third is the complete lack of chemistry between Lilli Palmer and William Holden, both of whom have been bright and sexy in other roles. I don't know what the problem was, but they act more like they can barely stand each other than as the romantic leads.I think the fault lies mainly with George Seaton, the director. He is a GREAT writer...but as a director he does not understand his scripts and cannot seem to shape them into anything that approaches the hyper-reality of great cinema. I keep thinking of what Alfred Hitchcock could have done with this story, how sexy and scary it would have been.But that's wishful thinking, and even with these flaws, the truth of the story builds and captures you and intensifies and provide some powerful moments. I was engrossed, despite myself. Here's a good movie ripe for a remake with an international cast done by someone like Spielberg or Weir. No counterfeit directors, those two; the only one is the one who directed THIS movie.