5 Fingers (1952, James Mason, Danielle Darrieux)

Published

5 years ago

November 25, 2018

Based on real events that took place during WWII, Five Fingers is an almost unbelievable story. When Ulysses Diello (JAMES MASON), Albanian valet to the British Ambassador (WALTER HAMPDEN) to Turkey wanted to make money, he decided to sell Allied secrets to the Nazis. He adopts the code name of Cicero and establishes an alibi for his reasons to be out of the embassy by forming a spurious relationship with down-at-heel countess DANIELLE DARRIEUX and setting her up in a mansion on the outskirts of town.

There, he meets his Nazi controllers and passes to them every secret in the embassy. However, such is the quality of Mason’s information – he can even tell the Germans the times and dates of the Allied invasion of Europe – that they refuse to believe him. They think that he is a double agent who is feeding them false information. Meanwhile, the British military intelligence are onto Mason, and MICHAEL RENNIE is the leader of a gaggle of British spies all trying to track down the leak and getting close to Cicero’s trail…

production details
US | 108 minutes | 1952

Director: Joseph L Mankiewicz
Writer: Michael Wilson, based on the book by LC Moyzisch

cast
James Mason as Ulysses Diello
Danielle Darrieux as Condesa Anna Staviska
Michael Rennie as Colin Travers
Walter Hampden as Sir Frederic Taylor
Oskar Karlweis as L. C. Moyzisch
Herbert Berghof as Col. von Richter
John Wengraf as Count Franz Von Papen
Ben Astar as Siebert
Roger Plowden as Keith Macfadden
Diane Adrian as Singer on French Record (voice) (uncredited)