Main Cast: James Mason, Danielle Darrieux, Michael Rennie, Oscar Karlweis, Herbert Berghof, Walter Hampden
Release Year: 1952
Country: US
Run Time: 108 minutes
Plot
Based on a true story, 5 Fingers stars James Mason as a man known to his superiors only as Cicero. Ostensibly the valet of the British ambassador to Ankara during World War II, Cicero is actually a Nazi agent. He holds no particular political viewpoint: the Nazis offered the best price, so for the time being he is loyal to them. Falling in love with the beautiful Danielle Darrieux, Cicero uses her home as a contact point to meet his German associates. At great personal risk, Cicero secures secret British war files and smuggles them to the Germans; they find the information in the files too far-fetched to be taken seriously--and thus are caught unawares on the morning of the D-Day invasion. An ironic coda finds Cicero, setting himself up in luxury in Rio de Janeiro, double-crossed by both Darrieux and the Germans. What else can he do but laugh uproariously? 5 Fingers, based on the memoirs of the real-life "Cicero" L. C. Moyzisch, was adapted into a 1959 TV series, wherein the antihero was converted into a 100% good guy. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review
5 Fingers is a witty and suspenseful spy thriller highlighted by one of James Mason's best and most enigmatic performances. In an unusual turn for a film of the early 1950s, the protagonist is both an amoral enemy spy and a charming, audience-appealing rouge -- the type of role that would later be called an anti-hero. This was the last of Michael Wilson's scripts to be produced before he fell victim to the McCarthy-era blacklists, and the screenplay is among the film's major assets, emphasizing Wilson's cynical view of the hypocrisy of government authority. Director Joseph L. Mankiewicz keeps the proceedings moving swiftly, allowing events to flow from the development of the film's characters. Bernard Herrmann's score adds effectively to the mood. Both Mankiewicz and Wilson were nominated for Oscars, though neither won. ~ Richard Gilliam, All Movie Guide
The film tells the true story of Albanian-born Elyesa Bazna, one of the most famous spies of World War II. He worked for the Nazis in 1943–44 while he was employed as valet to the British ambassador to Turkey, Sir Hughe Montgomery Knatchbull-Hugessen. He used the code name Cicero. He would photograph top-secret documents and turn the films over to Franz von Papen, the former German chancellor, at that time German ambassador in Ankara, via the intermediary Moyzisch, a commercial attaché at the embassy.
Bazna published his own account of the events in his book, I Was Cicero, in 1962 (Bazna, Elyesa, with Hans Nogly. I Was Cicero. New York: Harper & Row, 1962)
