History Film / OneTwoThree

* FailedFutureForecast: When production commenced in Berlin, there was no wall. Halfway through production, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik decided, [[{{Understatement}} quite inconveniently]], to erect the first layers of what would eventually become Die Mauer. This threw a monkey wrench in the plans of the filmmakers, especially when they had obtained permits to shoot near the Brandenburg Gate.

* TheGreatPoliticsMessUp: This time the other way round. Before August 1961, people could cross the border between West and East Berlin quite easily - which millions of East Germans used to move to the promised golden west. The movie was based on this premise and suffered when the wall was built.

* DeweyDefeatsTruman: When production commenced in Berlin, there was no wall. Halfway through production, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik decided, [[{{Understatement}} quite inconveniently]], to erect the first layers of what would eventually become Die Mauer. This threw a monkey wrench in the plans of the filmmakers, especially when they had obtained permits to shoot near the Brandenburg Gate.

* KickedUpstairs: The fate that [=MacNamara=] is trying to avoid for most of the film: reassignment to the home office in Atlanta. [[spoiler:It happens in the end, but he faces it with equanimity, since it will let him be closer to his family.]]

* TheCameo: The hotel orchestra playing the German version of "Yes, We Have No Bananas" is conducted by composer Friedrich Hollaender ("[[Film/TheBlueAngel Falling in Love Again]]"). And Creator/RedButtons appears as U.S. military policeman.

* TheCameo: The hotel orchestra playing the German version of "Yes, We Have No Bananas" is conducted by composer Friedrich Hollaender ("[[Film/TheBlueAngel Falling in Love Again]]"). Red Buttons appears as US military policeman.

Things seem to be going fine for C. R. [=MacNamara=] (Creator/JamesCagney): Coca-Cola is doing well in West Germany, and he's about to seal a deal with the Soviet trade commission to get the brand past the Iron Curtain. Hoping this will earn him a prized position in London, sadly Mac has to jump through one more hoop. The daughter of his boss is on a tour of Europe and said boss ''insists'' that Mac look after her. So for over a month Scarlett Hazeltine (Pamela Tiffin) is a guest of the [=MacNamara's=]. Thankfully her parents have made plans to come and take her home. Unfortunately, Scarlet's new ''husband'' Otto Ludwig Piffl (Horst Buchholz) has other plans. It seems that Scarlett had been sneaking out of the house the whole time she was with the [=MacNamara's=] and slipped behind the Iron Curtain to have fun on the town. Which is where she ran into the young Communist, and naturally, they fell in love... [[SarcasmMode naturally]]. At first Mac tries to get the marriage annulled by hook and by crook, but then it turns out that Scarlett is pregnant! So now Mac must make Otto acceptable to Scarlett's conservative high society parents or he'll be thrown out into the streets.

* DeweyDefeatsTruman: When production commenced in Berlin, there was no wall. Halfway through production, the Deutsche Demokratische Republik decided, [[{{Understatement}} quite inconveniently]], to erect the first layers of what would eventually become Die Mauer. This threw a monkey wrench in the plans of the filmmakers, especially when they had obtained permits to shoot near the Brandenburg Gate. It also meant that as mentioned above, that the movie entered theaters already dated with a side of TooSoon.

* SettingUpdate: The film is based on a 1928 play by the Hungarian writer Ferenc Molnár, about a businessman whose biggest client's daughter marries an obnoxious young socialist. Wilder kept the basic premise but updated it from 1920s Paris to Berlin at the height of TheColdWar.

* FawltyTowersPlot: [=MacNamara=] sets Otto up to get arrested, then has to rescue him and quickly concoct a scheme to make him acceptable to Hazeltine, all to get a promotion, [[spoiler:and he succeeds]]. He even has some character similarities to [[Series/FawltyTowers Basil Fawlty]].

* DirtyCommunists

* AllGermansAreNazis: Played with. [=MacNamara=] has a former SS member as his assistant; one scene shows his employees acting like complete robots when issued orders. This comes in handy when Schlemmer [[spoiler:gives away that the investigative reporter who threatens to expose the whole deal is a former SS officer]].

* UsefulNotes/ColdWar: The film is set in 1961, and some events get referenced, for instance [=MacNamara=] says he got his "Yankee Doodle" cuckoo clock as a present from his employees to commemorate the Berlin Airlift.
* CoolAndUnusualPunishment[=/=]LoudOfWar: The communist who married the daughter of Coca Cola's CEO is being tortured in East Berlin ... by being forced to listen to "Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Yellow Polkadot Bikini" on repeat for hours on end. When that is not enough, they play it with the record spindle off-center. He writhes in pain and finally caves in, confessing to being an American spy.
** CreatorBacklash: Billy Wilder ''hated'' RockAndRoll.

* UsefulNotes/GermanDialects: In the original version, the ''Volkspolizisten'' interrogating Otto speak standard High German, in the German dub they speak with a Saxon accent, which at the time was perceived as ''the'' East German one, not least because SED party chief Walter Ulbricht had a noticeable one.

* LargeHam: James Cagney's performance here exhausted him so much that he retired.

* {{Lzherusskie}}: The Russian characters are played by Austrian and German actors.
* UsefulNotes/MoscowCentre: [[spoiler: Borodenko (Ralf Wolter)]], one of the members of the Soviet trade delegation, is actually a KGB agent with the job to watch the other two.
* NominalHero: [=MacNamara=]. He cheats on his wife, neglects his children, and all of his actions are motivated entirely by self-interest. To get the prize job in London (for which he already has bought a new umbrella) he has no scruples to destroy the happiness of a young couple, make vanish the marriage documents from the registry office, frame the bridegroom as an American spy, destroying his intended career and at the very least ensuring that he spent several years in prison. Then unfortunately it turns out Scarlett is pregnant...

* ShoutOut: To ''Film/LittleCaesar'', ''Film/YankeeDoodleDandy'', ''Film/ThePublicEnemy'', ''Film/{{Ninotchka}}''.

* UsefulNotes/TheSpaceRace: At the time of the filming, the Soviet Union was still ahead, prompting Otto (who dreams of becoming a rocket scientist himself) to make a rather cruel joke to [=MacNamara=]: "Soviet rocket: whoosh, up to the moon! American rocket: pffft, pffft, Miami Beach."

* ZanyScheme: At one point, they need a ZanyScheme to revert the effects of another one. Which they are responsible for.

-->"Is exact replica of 1937 Nash!"
** It isn't. It's a much smaller car with up-to-date late '50s styling. How the Vopos wound up with a French Simca Aronde instead of an East German or Soviet model is pure movie magic, too...

* MisplacedNationalism: Parodied when Jimmy Cagney is upset with Coca-Cola heiress Scarlett for taking part in a "Yankee, Go Home" rally: "But back home, ''everybody'' hates the Yankees!" ("Ami, Go Home" would have been a completely different thing, of course...)

'''''One, Two, Three''''' is a comedy movie by Creator/BillyWilder from 1961. Set in UsefulNotes/{{Berlin}} shortly before the wall was built, it's about the boss of Coca-Cola West Berlin, who has to care for the daughter of his boss spending her holiday there. And tries to do business with some Communists, to expand Coca-Cola beyond the Iron Curtain. And finds his marriage is about to fall apart. Plenty of HilarityEnsues.

Things seem to be going fine for C. R. [=MacNamara=] (JamesCagney): Coca-Cola is doing well in West Germany, and he's about to seal a deal with the Soviet trade commission to get the brand past the Iron Curtain. Hoping this will earn him a prized position in London, sadly Mac has to jump through one more hoop. The daughter of his boss is on a tour of Europe and said boss ''insists'' that Mac look after her. So for over a month Scarlett Hazeltine (Pamela Tiffin) is a guest of the [=MacNamara's=]. Thankfully her parents have made plans to come and take her home. Unfortunately, Scarlet's new ''husband'' Otto Ludwig Piffl (Horst Buchholz) has other plans. It seems that Scarlett had been sneaking out of the house the whole time she was with the [=MacNamara's=] and slipped behind the Iron Curtain to have fun on the town. Which is where she ran into the young Communist, and naturally, they fell in love...[[SarcasmMode naturally]]. At first Mac tries to get the marriage annulled by hook and by crook, but then it turns out that Scarlett is pregnant! So now Mac must make Otto acceptable to Scarlett's conservative high society parents or he'll be thrown out into the streets.

* BaitAndSwitch: The very movie starts with it. [=MacNamara=] starts talking how America was looking to UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC on August the 13th of 1961... for a baseball game. Oh, by the way, on the same day the Commies built TheBerlinWall.

-->'''Peripetchikoff:''' Do you know what happens if I defect? They will line up my family and shoot them! My wife, my mother-in-law, my brother-in-law, my sister-in-law...({{Beat}})...Let's do it!

* MoscowCentre: [[spoiler: Borodenko (Ralf Wolter)]], one of the members of the Soviet trade delegation, is actually a KGB agent with the job to watch the other two.

* DirtyCommies

* ViewersAreMorons: When Schlemmer recognises the reporter as his former SS officer, he addresses him as "Herr Oberleutnant" (the equivalent of a (First) Lieutenant), a rank familiar to English-speaking viewers, but which was not actually used in the SS. The German dub has Schlemmer saying "Herr Obersturmführer", which does give away that the man is a Nazi, as ''Obersturmführer'' was the equivalent of ''Oberleutnant'' in the SS and the SA.