5 Fingers – Review

This one won’t work for many modern audiences based on its slower pacing, but for those accustomed to older movies will still find a good time with the spy flick 5 Fingers, which is based on a true story. Pitting embassy agents, spies, royalty, and government forces against each other in the midst of WWII, 5 Fingers covers a few moving plot lines full of double-agents and espionage.

Opening with a quick set-up, a widowed Polish countess originally from France Anna Staviska (Darrieux) meets with a German ambassador Franz von Papen (Wengraf) with an offer to spy, which he passes on. Next the plot shifts to a lowly valet Ulysses Diello (Mason) who supports the British ambassador Sir Frederic Taylor (Hampden). Diello is sick of this life, and is ready to move up in the world. But how to best accomplish this?

Diello figures he has direct access to some pretty serious money-making information and documentation, knowing where the ambassador’s papers lie hidden. Diello meets with Ludwig Carl (L.C.) Moyzisch (Karlweis) at the German embassy, offering to provide top-secret info to von Papen. All he requires is £20,000. Moyzisch thankfully is a film development expert and can help verify the photographs that Diello provides. The pair begin to move information for money, as Diello has the goal of retiring far away in South America.

Diello runs into Anna Staviska, and the film’s many players get wound up into a ball of tension and plotting. 5 Fingers is a bit slow to play out, but the moving parts work pretty well by the end and some double-and-triple crosses play out well. The acting fits the film fine and is not corny or too hammy, but the atmosphere is a bit stuffy in general. I liked it despite its pacing, and the actors are sound.