5 Fingers (1952)

Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Academy Award-nominated "5 Fingers" strikes me as the sort of movie that set the stage for the direction that spy movies would take over the next decade or two. James Mason plays Diello, a valet for the British ambassador in neutral Turkey during WWII. He decides to become a double agent for Germany, and employs a refugee countess (Danielle Darrieux) in his handiwork. But there's more than meets the eye.The fact that this was a true story should alone be enough reason to watch the movie. But the cinematography (filmed in the locations where the story took place, no less) and soundtrack - by Bernard Herrmann of "Psycho" fame - give the movie an intensity that few movies have. Indeed, because of how the story gets told, we root for Diello to successfully carry out his morally questionable deeds (much like how Alfred Hitchcock plays with the audience in "Psycho"). And I did not see that ending coming.I wouldn't go so far as to call the movie a masterpiece, but it's a movie that I recommend seeing. Both a look at the cynicism of international relations, and the eerie setting hint at the sorts of things that the James Bond movies would depict a decade later. Good one, with outstanding performances by all the cast members. I can't believe that I'd never heard of Danielle Darrieux until she died last year.

Here we have s spy-thriller that is not just like any other. First of all the main character is not working for the 'good guys', which already was a surprising move to take for this movie.Reason why this movie tells this particular story, is because it's all being based on a true story, that was a quite remarkable one. An Albanian born guy, who worked for the British embassy in Turkey, becoming a spy for Nazi Germany during WW II, just simply for the money. It doesn't try to romanticize anything and it doesn't ever want to make you care for its main character but it's simply telling a story, in a rather good and compelling way.It's not a slick or very exciting spy-thriller. Instead it's more of a talkative one, that is being kept deliberately straightforward and small and simple with all of its settings and characters. No doubt this was all also due to budget reasons but it's something that works out well for the movie eventually, as well as for its overall style and tense atmosphere.It's a movie that lets its actors do most of the work, to tell its story with. And the movie has plenty of fine actors in it, that carry this movie and have the right required charisma and talent for it. James Mason is really good as a smooth talking and looking spy, who is not necessarily likable but he is a very interesting character, which makes you want to keep watching.It's also a movie you need to keep on paying attention to, or else you will most likely miss an important aspect about its story. In that regard this is not a movie for just everybody but having said that, it still has plenty of entertainment and excitement to over as well. It just is not what this entire movie was all about and you shouldn't watch this movie expecting a thriller, with plenty of chases or shootouts in it.An ultimately very rewarding movie.8/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Supposedly based on a true story, a valet uses his position at British embassy to steal WWII secrets to sell to the Germans.What a superbly tight script that stays on the compelling track the whole time. We watch lowly valet Diello (Mason) use nothing but wits and guts to outmaneuver both the British and the Germans. He's not a sympathetic lead character, always unusual for a Hollywood production (TCF). But you can't help admiring his ability to outwit the professionals, even if he is completely self-centered. I get the feeling Diello sees himself as a natural born aristocrat denied that position by the fortunes of birth. So, by golly, he's going to use those talents to get the wealth and position he deserves, but which European society has denied him.Mason is simply superb in a tailor-made part. He projects both the icy intelligence and curt politeness that the role requires. I sweated a bucket load when the cleaning lady rummages around the closet, while Diello photographs embassy secrets. If she finds the power switch, he's toast. Great scene. Note too, how there're no obvious good guys-bad guys, also unusual for a WWII drama. The British are slightly favored, but at least the Germans aren't caricatured. It's more like one opportunist (Diello) is exploiting both sides impartially, and they're both after him.Then too, what guy wouldn't lose his head over the delectable Darrieux, even a guy as calculating as Diello. All of which makes the ending one of the most ironically satisfying in movie annals. I'm betting this was one of the best films to come out of that spare movie year of 1952. So if you haven't seen it, do.

(There are Spoilers) It's March 1944 and things aren't going that good for the Germans in Europe with them being thrown out of the USSR and desperately holding on to their former alley Italy holding off the allied forces there who are within artillery fire from Rome. With all this going on the Germans need all the help that they can get and they get it in the form of the valet to the Briitish ambassador to Turkey an ambitious civil servant in His Majesty's service Ulyesses Diello, James Mason. Diello has had it with his life that was going nowhere and wanted to make it big and then check out to South America, in Rio De Janeiro, and live like a king but the only way he can pull that off is by spying for the Germans and getting his hands on top secret information. Diello plans to get this secret information from his boss the British ambassador Sir Frederic, Walter Hampden, when he was outside of his office, which seems like all the time, attending as well as entertaining parties and state dinners.Getting in touch with the attaché of the German ambassador to Turkey Count Von Papan, John Wengraf, a guy named L.C Moyzisch, played by Oskar Karlweis, Diello later given the code name, by Ambassador Von Papan, "Cicero". Diallo Impresses the German diplomat so much that Van Papan get's in touch with Berlin so he can get the go ahead to do business with him but at a price: 20,000 in British Pound Sterling. Deillo's plan at first works flawlessly with him getting his hands on every piece of information, that always top secret, that's sent to the British ambassador. Photographing the documents and, after getting paid by the German government, Diello then sends it on to his contact,Moyzisch, in the German embassy.Despite his ability to be secretive Deillo foolishly gets involved with the stateless and almost destitute, the Germans confiscated all her property money and holdings back in Poland, Polish Countess Anna Staviska, Danielle Darrieux. Deillo had the hots for Anna since he met her back in London before the war as her late husbands valet. Being a bit too trustworthy in a business, spying,where trust is a dirty word Diello lets his both pants and guard down and gets it where it hurts him the most both in his wallet and bank account. Diello gets zinged not only by scheming and double-crossing Countess Staviska but the German Government as well,in the end which will, like it did Diello, completely blow you away.Tense filled and exciting movie about spying that has going for it the fact that it was based on a true story where more then anything else we see just how true the saying "Truth is stranger then fiction" really is. Diello has nerves of steel in his nerve-wrecking attempts to get a hold of British Military secrets that if caught can have him take a long walk and short drop at the end of a rope. Manipulating both sides, the German & British, in keeping him alive and free in order to find out whom his contacts are and how much he actually received and sold to both warring parties, the British and Germans, has Deillo playing for high stakes in both money as well as his life.Even though Diello screwed a lot of people in the movie he got the royal screwing in the end with his lover the two-timing Countess Staviska checking out on him and going to neutral Switzerland with all his cash, 130,000 Pound Sterling, just when he was about to check out together with her to South America. Diello gets in touch with his contact Moyzisch, whom he'd since discarded, for one last deal in getting him, and his German boss', for a cool 100,000 Pound Sterling the plan to invade Europe by the allies, Operation Overlord, and open up a second front against Germany later that spring.By sticking his neck out in getting the information from the British ambassador's office safe, that was rigged with an alarm, Diello blew his cover and was now a marked man by both his former employer the British Government as well as his collaborators The Germans. The two were tricked, by the sneaky Countess Staviska, into thinking that Diello was working either for the British or Germans as a double-agent giving both sides bogus information. This miscalculation on the Germans part had them throw away the actual plan by the British and US to invade France in June 1944 which if they believed and acted on it the Germans may well have prevented the allies from invading and conquering Western Europe. At the same time, with a second front no longer a reality, The Germans would have been able to defeat the Red Army and thus win the second World War.One of the best spy films ever made not only because of the superior acting, especially by James Mason as Diello/Cicero, editing and directing. The very fact that it really happened shows just how close Hitler's Germany was in winning the Second World War even as late as the spring of 1944 when most people in the allies camp , both in government and the military, thought that the war was just about over and that Nazi Germany would be defeated by Christmas 1944 at the latest. Nazi Germany in fact held out together with it's Fhurer Adolph Hitler for five more long brutal and bloody months with just the Western Allies alone, the British & Americans, suffering well over 300,000 casualties in the desperate,by the defending Germans, and no holds bar, by both sides, battle of Western Germany until the war finally ended in Germanys total defeat in the spring of 1945.