March 7 - Five Fingers

Today’s movie is an espionage thriller with a scene that happens on March 7. I hope you will enjoy this film and watch it tonight.

FIVE FINGERS                  

Count Franz Von Papen, the German ambassador to neutral Turkey in 1944 turns down an offer by a destitute Polish Countess Anna Staviska to become a paid spy for Germany. That same night a man approaches Moyzisch, an attaché at the German embassy and offers to supply top-secret British documents for £20,000. We see that the man, Ulysses Diello, is the valet of the British ambassador to Turkey, Sir Frederic Taylor. On March 7, 1944 [21:16 to 39:16] Diello delivers the first roll of microfilm to Moyzisch. He is paid and told his code name is “Cicero”. Diello visits Countess Anna Staviska, as he used to work for her deceased husband and asks her to help him by depositing the money in the bank, as he does not want to draw attention to himself. The German High Command after reviewing the documents thinks they are too good to be real and must be a British plant. However they agree to several transactions where they pay Cicero £15,000 per roll of film. The Germans send an officer, Colonel von Richter, to Turkey to investigate. Meanwhile Sir Frederic learns from the Turks that he has a security leak and London sends Colin Travers to investigate. Richter asks Cicero to get info about Operation Overlord and he agrees in return for £40,000. Travers has an alarm put on Sir Frederic’s safe. Diello thinks the British are getting suspicious of him and decides to leave for Brazil with his ill-gotten gains and the Countess. However, the Countess takes the cash and flies to Switzerland by herself and writes a letter to Sir Frederic denouncing Diello as a German spy. Diello decides to get the Overlord documents. He disables the alarm by turning off the electricity. He photos the Overlord documents and steals Countess Straviska’s unopened letter. He replaces the documents, but sets off the alarm as a maid had restored the electricity in order to vacuum. Diello runs away before he can be arrested. Diello has upped his price to £100,000, which he gets at an Istanbul restaurant in exchange for the film. Travers has trailed Diello there and offers to protect Diello from the Germans, who now want him dead since they have the film. Travers wants to know what Cicero gave to the Germans. Diello pretends to agree, but then bolts and escapes both the British and German agents who are looking for him. The Countess had also written to the German ambassador telling him Diello was a British agent, so the Germans think the documents he had provided with the real details about Overlord are plants and ignore them. In Brazil, Diello is arrested when the British pounds he got from the German turn out to be counterfeit.

A fascinating true story. Mason plays Diello as a smug, superior type who outsmarets the British and the Germans, but is taken in by a woman. A highly entertaining film. 

The date is given in the film at 15:47

Producer - Otto Lang

Director - Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Awards - The film was nominated for the Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay  

                 Oscars at the 25^th Academy Awards.

Screenplay - Michael Wilson

Runtime –  1 hour 48 minutes

Released - February 22, 1952

Cast –

James Mason as Ulysses Diello / Cicero

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  

Copyright by Ivan Walters 2014.