5 Fingers

5 Fingers, known also as Five Fingers, is a 1952 American 20th Century Fox spy film directed by Joseph L. Mankiewicz and produced by Otto Lang. The screenplay by Michael Wilson and Mankiewicz was based on Operation Cicero (Original German: Der Fall Cicero) (1950) by L.C. Moyzisch.

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.

In the film, James Mason plays Ulysses Diello (Cicero), the character based on Bazna. The rest of the cast includes Danielle Darrieux, Michael Rennie, Herbert Berghof and Walter Hampden.

The film was nominated for two Academy Awards, Best Director for Mankiewicz and Best Screenplay for Wilson. Mankiewicz was also nominated for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures by the Directors Guild of America and Wilson was nominated for Best Written American Drama by the Writers Guild of America. He won the Golden Globe for Best Screenplay and the Edgar Award for Best Mystery Screenplay.

Five Fingers was adapted to television in a 1959-1960 NBC and 20th Century Fox 16-episode series starring David Hedison and Luciana Paluzzi.

Cast

• James Mason as Ulysses Diello
• Danielle Darrieux as Countess Anna Staviska
• Michael Rennie as Colin Travers
• Walter Hampden as Sir Frederic Taylor
• Oskar Karlweis as Moyzisch
• Herbert Berghof as Colonel von Richter
• John Wengraf as Count Franz Von Papen
• Ben Astar as Siebert
• Roger Plowden as McFadden

References

• 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)

External links

• 5 Fingers at the Internet Movie Database
• 5 Fingers at AllRovi