I Was Monty's Double
book by M. E. Clifton James
I Was Monty's Double (released in the US as The Counterfeit General Montgomery) is a book by M. E. Clifton James, first published in London in 1954. It was made into a film in 1958, directed by John Guillermin, from a screenplay adapted by Bryan Forbes. It tells the story of Operation Copperhead: James had an uncanny resemblance to Bernard Montgomery in real life, and he was used to impersonate Montgomery to confuse the Germans during the Second World War.
Film vs book
The film broadly follows the account by James in his book of the same name, but according to James, there was no attempt to kidnap him. The German High Command did plan to have him killed, but Hitler vetoed the plan until he could be sure where the landings would actually take place.
Gibraltar was in reality a hotbed of German agents, and James/Montgomery was spied on by several operatives who were smuggled into Gibraltar specifically to discover what "Monty" was up to. James/Montgomery deliberately talked nonsense about non-existent operations and plans, in the hope that the spies would overhear and take such information seriously. According to some accounts, the plan was brought to an abrupt end when James, still in disguise as Montgomery, was seen in public drunk and smoking, while the real Montgomery was a teetotaling non-smoker.
Satires
The Goon Show broadcast a parody episode entitled I Was Monty's Treble on 10 November 1958 (9th series, show 2).
In 1959, Cecil Parker and Leslie Phillips appeared in a spoof version, The Night We Dropped a Clanger (known as Make Mine a Double in the U.S.), alongside Brian Rix.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “I Was Monty's Double” is book by M. E. Clifton James. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Monty's, Double and book, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “book by M. E. Clifton James” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q17111209. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1954, 1958 and 1959.
Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
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The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “I Was Monty's Double”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow I Was Monty's Double primary sources, I Was Monty's Double archive and Monty's research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “I Was Monty's Double” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.