If a role in the 1950s through '70s called for a commanding presence and a brooding resolve, one of the era's go-to actors for the part was Academy Award-winner Yul Brynner (The Magnificent Seven, Westworld). In The Double Man, Brynner brings those qualities to the role of CIA agent Dan Slater and -- without revealing the intriguing circumstances -- to the role of a rival look-alike spy. The action, paced by Oscar-winning director Franklin J. Schaffner, unfolds in the scenic Tyrolean Alps, where Slater shows up after the reported skiing-accident death of his son, unaware that his arrival is all part of a devious Cold War gambit. Britt Ekland plays a beauty who may or may not be a participant in that covert plot.

In this espionage thriller, Dan Slater (Yul Brynner) is a CIA agent who travels to Austria after his son dies in a skiiing mishap. Slater begins to suspect that his son's death wasn't an accident and begins investigating the matter on his own. Slater finds that fellow agent Frank Wheatley (Clive Revill) is of little help to him. Beautiful Gina (Britt Ekland), the companion of prominent socialite Mrs. Carrington (Moira Lister), then slowly draws Slater into her web. In time, he discovers that his son's death was all part of a diabolical plan to lure him to Austria; Soviet agents led by Bethold (Anton Diffring) have performed extensive plastic surgery on one of their top spies until he's identical to Slater, and they intend to send him back in Slater's place, giving them an insider at the highest levels of U.S. intelligence.