Dan Scoones wrote in message . ..

The main part of the action took place on board a ship, where both
Czentovic and Dr. B. were passengers. A group of chess enthusiasts
were playing Czentovic in consultation. Czentovic had his back to the
consultants and was playing bridge at the same time. The consultants
would signal that they had moved by tapping on a glass of water. Dr.
B. came along and gave them some help, and together they managed to
save what had probably been a lost position. The scowl on Czentovic's
face when the draw was achieved was something to behold. Of course
the narrator (one of the consultants) spent most of the rest of the
film trying to set up a game between the two masters. Dr. B. was a
thin, nervous fellow with glasses, whose story of internment was told
in flashbacks. Czentovic was a dark, heavy-set fellow, whom I later
thought might have been modelled after Alekhine. I never forgot this
film, but unfortunately I've never seen it again.

Was it Mario Adorf who played Czentovic? (See his picture at
http://www.marioadorf.com/). He's a well known actor in Germany. If
he's the one you saw then you must have seen the German film.

Marco

Actually the Omnibus version that I saw is not exactly as people describe the
Royal Game as being. Maybe there was all that chess play, but I think it was
a different film. The protagonist took a chess book during an interrogration
session in prison it would have been easy to assume it was a Nazi prison, but
it could have been elsewhere.. When the prisoner got back to his cell, he was
disapointed to find that the bookt was a book of chess games. Whether he knew
much about chess or not, He made a set out of black and white bread and
studied the games. When he was released or freed, he played chess andt
suffered a nervous break down.
A pshchologist whom he consulted advised him that under no circumstances should
he have anything to do with chess. He thanked the doctor, and as he left the
dortor's office, the camera dollied back to reveal that the lobby floor was a
checqured pattern. The film closed with a look of terror and anguish on the
poor man's face as he realized that he was face to face with what amounted to a
huge chess board.