SPOILER WARNING SPOILER WARNING...when the countess double-crossed James Mason? She would spy on the Germans, she would help Mason's valet character, Diello, spy on the British. Like Diello said, money was like electric light to her. She gave no thought to the source until it was shut off. And in their last conversation it was obvious to her that Diello considered the money he made from spying to be his money, not theirs. Diello's big mistake during all of this is an underlying belief that there is any honor among thieves, and not realizing this is not a business venture as far as any of the parties are concerned.The film is about a valet at the British embassy in neutral Turkey using the lack of any strong security measures at that embassy to steal Allied secrets and sell them to the Germans, amassing a large fortune in just a couple of months. It is true he wants a life of leisure in a peaceful place, but he is also in love with the now impoverished Countess Anna Staviska. And he knows she has a mercenary soul, and though she might have been attracted to him when he was her late husband's valet, she would never give herself to any man unless he had wealth.Post-war thrillers about WWII were usually much better than anything made during the war because they could be honest about the mercenary people who had no patriotism. Such people always exist. However, I did note that the movie made a point of Diello saying that he was actually born in Albania, not England. This was supposedly based on a true story, so I do not know if that was the truth, or just added to keep the British from looking bad.Mason and the countess get the best lines of the film, but the Germans get a bunch too as they are shown - at least at the embassy - thinking more for themselves than you would give them credit.This is full of twists and turns, and do watch this to the very end, because the final irony is enough even to find Diello's funny bone.

During the late 1940s and into the 1950s, Joseph Mankiewicz was probably the most successful man in Hollywood--directing and writing such amazing films as "A Letter to Three Wives", "All About Eve" and "House of Strangers". However, by the time he made "Five Fingers", Mankiewicz was at the end of his contract with Twentieth Century- Fox--and it sure was an excellent farewell.This movie is based on real events, though a few changes were made for cinematic purposes. James Mason plays a valet in the British embassy in Turkey during WWII and he's a completely trusted but totally amoral man. To earn money for his retirement, the guy approaches the Nazis and offers to sell them secrets. What is most interesting about this movie is that you see just how stupid the Nazis and the Brits. Despite repeatedly giving them excellent information, again and again the Nazis didn't trust it and didn't take advantage of it. As for the Brits, you wouldn't think that they'd let an Albanian valet to have such access to secrets! Still, it's a very fascinating story--one that is well made and well worth your time.

The film opens in 1944 at an embassy affair in neutral Turkey. The German ambassador, von Papen, slips out of the ballroom where the soprano is carrying on about the ride of the Valkyries, remarking, "Wagner makes me sick," and chats with Danielle Darrieux, a wealthy French countess who has been chased from France to Poland to England by falling bombs. She pleads with von Papen for money. She'll do anything to regain her estate and its treasures. She can be very beguiling. She can be a spy. Von Papen excuses himself politely and leaves. Another guest is standing nearby, eyeballing Darrieux. She sneers a little and tells him, "Please, don't stand there staring at me as if you were worth more than your salary." Good old, literate Joseph Mankiewitz, the writer and director who gave us "Fasten your seat belts. It's going to be a bumpy ride." Most of the good lines are given to James Mason as the British Ambassador's valet in Ankara. Valets, like most servants, are given what the sociologist Erving Goffman called "non-person treatment." They're regarded as items of convenience of pieces of furniture, and they know enough to keep family secrets. Mason, as "Cicero", his code name in German Intelligence, knows enough to keep family secrets too. He also knows enough to get the combination to the embassy's safe, remove valuable documents, photograph them, and sell them to German agents, no matter how dubious those German agents might be. They continue to suspect that he's a British double agent and they fail to act on his information, even the time and place of the D-Day landings on Normandy.There are several double crosses, which I won't describe in detail. When Mason has all the money he thinks he needs to live like a gentleman in Rio de Janeiro with his former employer, Darrieux, as his mistress, she runs off to Switzerland with all the dough. And when Mason finally reaches Rio and stands on his veranda in the evening breeze, drinking high-falutin' wine, an incident takes place that I don't believe because I think it may have been ripped off from "The Lavender Hill Mob." In the end it's a tale of morality. The moral is: Make sure you pay your charwoman enough so that she doesn't take a Minox camera to the material you've stashed in the family vault.

FIVE FINGERS is one of the better espionage movies that came out in the '50s, a post-war film that contains a wonderful central performance by JAMES MASON, an excellent script and fine direction from Joseph L. Mankiewicz. TCM was presenting it as a tribute to Bernard Herrmann, who contributes his background score to the film--a minor work, in my opinion, not as stirring as the scores he would later write for his collaboration with Hitchcock.It's the taut script that supplies all the suspense and the performances of an expert cast. DANIELLE DARRIEUX is assured as the greedy Countess who decides to go along with Mason's offer of assisting him in his little enterprise with the Germans so that she can acquire the wealth to which she is accustomed, rather than remain penniless. It's their relationship that leads to the stunning twist ending.There are clever touches in the screenplay that will have the viewer on the edge of the seat as Mason almost gets caught time after time, but is able to use his wits at all times to avoid capture. The satisfying ending is quite unpredictable and seems to be manufactured in order to add some zest to the spy story--but that's no matter.Mason was at the top of his form, using his voice and suave, debonair charm as an English gentleman who happens to be a very astute spy while working as a valet at the British Embassy in Ankara, Turkey. MICHAEL RENNIE is fine as the American agent assigned to find out who is stealing "Top Secret" WWII plans for defeating the Germans. The last half-hour deals with his attempts to track down and capture Mason once he is aware that he is the culprit.Fascinating spy yarn deserves to be seen as one of the best of its kind with an ironic ending.