One, Two, Three is a 1961 American comedy film directed by Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder was an Austro-Hungarian born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist, and journalist, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age...

 and written by him and I.A.L. Diamond. It is based on the 1929 Hungarian one-act play Egy, kettö, három by Ferenc Molnár

Ferenc Molnár

LanguageFerenc Molnár was a Hungarian dramatist and novelist. His Americanized name was Franz Molnar...

, with a "plot borrowed partly from" Ninotchka

Ninotchka

Ninotchka is a 1939 American film made for Metro Goldwyn Mayer by producer and director Ernst Lubitsch which stars Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. It was written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett and Walter Reisch, based on a screen story by Melchior Lengyel. Ninotchka is Greta Garbo's first full...

, a 1939 film co-written by Wilder. The comedy features James Cagney

James Cagney

James Francis Cagney, Jr. was an American actor, first on stage, then in film, where he had his greatest impact. Although he won acclaim and major awards for a wide variety of performances, he is best remembered for playing "tough guys." In 1999, the American Film Institute ranked him eighth...

, Horst Buchholz

Horst Buchholz

Horst Werner Buchholz was a German actor, remembered for his part in The Magnificent Seven and Nine Hours to Rama. He appeared in over sixty films during his acting career from 1952–2002.-Life and work:...

, Pamela Tiffin, Arlene Francis

Arlene Francis

Arlene Francis was an American actress, radio talk show host, and game show panelist...

, Leon Askin

Leon Askin

Leon Askin was an Austrian actor best known for portraying the character "General Burkhalter" on the TV sitcom Hogan's Heroes.-Early life:...

, Howard St. John

Howard St. John

Howard St. John was a Chicago-born character actor who specialized in unsympathetic roles. His work spanned Broadway, film and television...

, and others. It would be Cagney's last film appearance until Ragtime

Ragtime (film)

Ragtime is a 1981 American film based on the historical novel Ragtime by E. L. Doctorow. The action takes place in and around New York City, New Rochelle, and Atlantic City in the first decade of the 1900s, and includes fictionalized references to actual people and events of the time. The film was...

, 20 years later.

The film is primarily set in West Berlin

West Berlin

West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...

 during the Cold War

Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

, but before the construction of the Berlin Wall

Berlin Wall

The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...

, and politics is predominant in the premise.
C.R.