Best movie of this year hands down!

Waste of time

Don't listen to the Hype. It's awful

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Joseph L. Mankiewicz's Academy Award-nominated "5 Fingers" strikes me as the sort of movie that set the stage for the direction that spy movies would take over the next decade or two. James Mason plays Diello, a valet for the British ambassador in neutral Turkey during WWII. He decides to become a double agent for Germany, and employs a refugee countess (Danielle Darrieux) in his handiwork. But there's more than meets the eye.The fact that this was a true story should alone be enough reason to watch the movie. But the cinematography (filmed in the locations where the story took place, no less) and soundtrack - by Bernard Herrmann of "Psycho" fame - give the movie an intensity that few movies have. Indeed, because of how the story gets told, we root for Diello to successfully carry out his morally questionable deeds (much like how Alfred Hitchcock plays with the audience in "Psycho"). And I did not see that ending coming.I wouldn't go so far as to call the movie a masterpiece, but it's a movie that I recommend seeing. Both a look at the cynicism of international relations, and the eerie setting hint at the sorts of things that the James Bond movies would depict a decade later. Good one, with outstanding performances by all the cast members. I can't believe that I'd never heard of Danielle Darrieux until she died last year.

Fans of James Mason will love this. It has a neat and clean look about the story which is based on a true event, about an Albanian who spied for the Germans, code named Cicero. Any spy should be used to double dealing and then some. And the 'then some' makes this spy thriller a hoot.Cicero did warn the Germans that the Normandy invasion was to occur on a specific date but because of German intransigence and in-fighting--the veracity of the information was doubted.But film is never about reality--a book depicts reality in details the film can never capture. A film is about sense, about atmosphere, about character--and this film has that aplenty.

This World War II espionage classic has all the right elements in just the right mix: a) menacing Nazis; b) spies; c) double dealing; d) heroic characters; e) the old guard; f) noble values, g) a cliff-hanging ending; h) and just enough threatened violence to keep your palms sweaty and glued to your seat. An added plus is the exotic setting of the movie (in Turkey). It is my understanding that the director wanted to keep the movie as realistic as possible, so he filmed in locations where the action actually took place. A tag at the beginning of the film states that it is a real story. Suave James Mason is a joy to watch paired against straight-laced Michael Rennie. Don't miss this one!

Though I've yet to hear a satisfactory explanation of the title (maybe it has something to do with the digits necessary to open a safe), that's the only thing I can fault with this superb thriller. It's roughly based on a real incident in WWII, how rough doesn't matter; if it didn't happen exactly this way, it should have.James Mason has never put to better use his by turns servile and arrogant personae. He's an Albanian, personal valet to the British ambassador in neutral Turkey. He has a dream of a villa in Rio and to realize it he needs money. In his privileged position he can open the embassy safe (we never learn how he finagled the combination), photograph secret documents and sell them, after much initially suspicious resistance, to the German embassy.He then convinces his former Albanian boss' wife, broke, to hold the money for him, using what she needs to keep court. He even convinces himself that he's won her over emotionally, too.The twists and turns that follow as he's almost caught by the British authorities keep the film hopping along at a tense pace. The ending is Hollywood irony at its best. Totally unexpected.Look for it where you can. It rarely pops up on TV anymore.