Production notes

We knew that we were going to have a comedy, we [were] not going to be waiting for the laughs. But we had to go with Cagney, because Cagney was the whole picture. He really had the rhythm, and that was very good. It was not funny. But just the speed was funny ... The general idea was, let's make the fastest picture in the world ... And yeah, we did not wait, for once, for the big laughs. Cagney decided to take the role primarily because it was to be shot in Germany: while growing up in Manhattan's Yorkville neighborhood, he had had fond memories of the area, which was "teeming with German immigrants." Horst Buchholz was a young European actor who had recently finished The Magnificent Seven with Yul Brynner, Eli Wallach and Steve McQueen; reportedly, to star in the film, he turned down a role in Lawrence of Arabia. During the production of One, Two, Three, Buchholz became the only actor that Cagney ever openly disliked.

It is very interesting that not until the very end of my career did I meet an unco-operative fellow actor. As I review the pictures I’ve been in, I realize that each and every actor I worked with had a part in shaping my summary views on acting. We all worked together rewardingly with what I hope was mutual enrichment. I never had the slightest difficulty with a fellow actor until the making of One, Two, Three. In that picture, Horst Buchholz tried all kinds of scene-stealing didoes, and I had to depend on Billy Wilder to take some steps to correct this kid. If Billy hadn't, I was going to knock Buchholz on his ass, which at several points I would have been very happy to do. Although Tuesday Weld lobbied strongly for the role of Scarlett, the role went to Pamela Tiffin, her second film role following Summer and Smoke, who was chosen after Wilder spotted her in an ad in The New York Times and cast her immediately following her audition. To star in the film, Tiffin dropped out of Frank Capra's Pocketful of Miracles, with her role being reassigned to Ann-Margret. Reportedly, Liselotte Pulver was cast as the secretary after being noticed by Wilder's wife Audrey at a party hosted by Curt Jurgens. Jack Lemmon was initially cast in the uncredited cameo role of an army corporal, though the part was eventually given to Red Buttons. Wilder was filming in Berlin the morning the Berlin Wall went up, forcing the crew to move to Munich. Interiors were shot at Bavaria Film Studios. Because of issues with East German and Soviet authorities, who allowed Wilder to film on their side of Berlin only after reading the script, a full-size replica of the Brandenburg Gate was built on the back lot at the Bavaria Studios. To keep One, Two, Three current, Wilder and Diamond followed daily Berlin developments via Armed Forces Radio and the international New York Times, updating the script constantly. During principal photography, Wilder received a call from Joan Crawford, recently appointed to the board of directors of Pepsi-Cola following her husband Alfred Steele's death. In response to Crawford's protests over the use of the Coca-Cola brand in the film, Wilder scattered some references to Pepsi, including the final scene. The theatrical release poster for the film, with a woman holding three balloons, was designed by Saul Bass. The Bass designed poster that Wilder originally intended for the film's release featured a United States style flag sticking out of a Coca-Cola-style bottle. The poster had to be replaced, however, when Coca-Cola threatened legal action against United Artists for copyright infringement.

Critic Bosley Crowther applauded the work of Cagney and wrote,

With all due respect for all the others, all of whom are very good—Pamela Tiffin, a new young beauty, as Scarlett; Horst Buchholz as the East Berlin boy, Lilo Pulver as a German secretary, Leon Askin as a Communist stooge and several more—the burden is carried by Mr. Cagney, who is a good 50 per cent of the show. He has seldom worked so hard in any picture or had such a browbeating ball. His fellow is a free-wheeling rascal. His wife (Arlene Francis) hates his guts. He knows all the ways of beating the rackets and has no compunctions about their use. He is brutishly bold and brassy, wildly ingenious and glib. Mr. Cagney makes you mistrust him—but he sure makes you laugh with him. And that's about the nature of the picture. It is one with which you can laugh—with its own impudence toward foreign crises—while laughing at its rowdy spinning jokes. Time magazine called it a "yell-mell, hard-sell, Sennett-with-a-sound-track satire of iron curtains and color lines, of people's demockeracy, Coca-Colonization, peaceful noexistence [sic], and the Deep Southern concept that all facilities are created separate but equal." Time notes Wilder "purposely neglects the high precision of hilarity that made Some Like It Hot a screwball classic and The Apartment a peerless comedy of officemanship. But in the rapid, brutal, whambam style of a man swatting flies with a pile driver, he has produced a sometimes beWildered [sic], often wonderfully funny exercise in nonstop nuttiness." The film won kudos from the staff at Variety. They wrote, "Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three is a fast-paced, high-pitched, hard-hitting, lighthearted farce crammed with topical gags and spiced with satirical overtones. Story is so furiously quick-witted that some of its wit gets snarled and smothered in overlap. But total experience packs a considerable wallop." Pauline Kael, on the other hand, dismissed the film as a tiresome succession of stale and inane gags. She was also bemused by what seemed to her the forced enthusiasm of the favorable reviews. According to J. Hoberman, screenwriter Abby Mann (who wrote Judgment at Nuremberg) "deemed Wilder's [film] so tasteless, he felt obliged to apologize for it at the Moscow Film Festival." On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a score of 88% based on 25 reviews, with the consensus reading, "Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three is an uproarious Cold War satire, offering devastating critiques of both factions with an effortless touch and a powerhouse performance from James Cagney."

One, Two, Three did not do well at either the U.S. or German box office. The lighthearted East-West Berlin story felt much more sinister at the release, since the Berlin Wall had been built after principal photography began. It earned rentals over $2 million in the US and Canada. The film recorded a loss of $1.6 million. However, it was re-released in 1985 in France and West Germany and became a box office success, especially in West Berlin.

One, Two, Three was banned in Finland, which had a policy of Finlandization, from 1962 to 1986 on "political" grounds — it was feared that the film would harm relations between Finland and the Soviet Union. United Pictures Finland tried to get the film released theatrically in 1962, 1966 and 1969 but it was only in 1986 that the Finnish Board of Film Classification allowed the film to be distributed.

Nominations

Academy Awards: Oscar, Best Cinematography, Black-and-White, Daniel L. Fapp; 1962. Golden Globes: Golden Globe, Best Motion Picture – Comedy; Best Supporting Actress, Pamela Tiffin; 1962. Laurel Awards: Golden Laurel, Top Comedy, 4th place; Top Male Comedy Performance, James Cagney, 4th place; 1962. Writers Guild of America Awards: Best Written American Comedy (Screen), Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond; 1962.

The film makes several references to Cagney's earlier films, including a Cagney impression from Red Buttons, and the grapefruit-to-the-face incident from The Public Enemy. Additionally, the cuckoo clock in MacNamara's office plays "Yankee Doodle Dandy". Cagney also refers to his contemporary Edward G. Robinson by using Robinson's line "Mother of Mercy, is this the end of Rico?" from Little Caesar, which was a competitor of The Public Enemy. The Cold War is referenced, with one joke spoken by an apparatchik seeming to foreshadow the Cuban Missile Crisis: "We have trade agreement with Cuba: they send us cigars, we send them rockets." When Cagney's character retorts that they are "pretty crummy cigars," the Russian replies that they send the Cubans "pretty crummy rockets." Cagney noted that he quit Hollywood after this film due to fatigue from an inordinate number of lines in a lengthy movie helmed by a demanding Wilder and to a feeling of jealousy when he heard from a friend about to set off on a leisurely yachting trip. In the 2015 Steven Spielberg-directed film about an incident in the cold war, Bridge of Spies, there is a scene with a Berlin movie-house showing the film Eins, Zwei, Drei in the background.