Movie Review: 5 Fingers (1952)

A spy drama based on actual events, 5 Fingers is a gripping story of treason motivated by personal gain.

In 1944, Turkey is neutral territory during World War Two and a hub for spies and diplomats. Albanian-born Ulysses Diello (James Mason) is the British Ambassador's valet. He approaches German embassy attaché Moyzisch and offers to sell Allied secrets for £20,000 per film roll. The Germans are stunned but agree, giving Diello the codename Cicero and dispatching Colonel von Richter to become his primary contact.

Diello has access to the British embassy safe and on a weekly basis photographs top secret documents and sells them to von Richter for cash. He uses the home of near-bankrupt Polish Countess Anna Staviska (Danielle Darrieux) for cover. With Operation Overlord looming and the stakes getting higher, the British suspect a spy is operating out of Turkey and send counterintelligence agent Colin Travers (Michael Rennie) to investigate.

An adaptation of the book by Moyzisch, 5 Fingers achieves superlative engagement by respecting all the key characters. Within an efficient and thoughtful storytelling framework combining glamorous diplomatic parties, skulking in the shadows, and just-in-time thrills, writer Michael Wilson and director Joseph L. Mankiewicz demonstrate care for multiple perspectives and avoid labels of heroism, treachery, good, or evil. Instead they seek motivations, reactions, and consequences, and produce a well-rounded exposition of a startling spy incident.

The constraints of the British class system come under scrutiny. Diello believes himself better than a valet, but his Albanian origins limit opportunities for advancement. Entranced by the vision of the rich expatriate enjoying the Rio playground, he sets his sights on achieving a personal goal. James Mason gives the role a shiny gloss, revealing a confident man of quick intellect, ironically creating in Diello the closest thing to a protagonist.

But smarts alone are not enough in the spy game, and the drama is enhanced by a complicated dynamic between Diello and the Countess (a made-up character for the movie). Diello's vision includes a glamorous woman by his side, but his valet status re-emerges as an obstacle. Despite being penniless and desperate for a sponsor, the Countess still has standards and may not so readily accept affections from a member of the servant class.

Mankiewicz enriches the tension by peeling back the curtain on the German reaction to Cicero's emergence. They are cautious, suspicious, careful, but tempted. The debate resonates in Berlin, and von Richter arrives in Turkey to take charge. The tension and disagreements between Berlin officials and the German Ambassador demonstrate the film's cerebral qualities. On the other side, counterintelligence agent Travers starts his sleuthing for the British, and now Diello has to guard against professional eyes right within his home embassy.

The energy intensifies as 5 Fingers works its way to multiple delicious twists in the final act. When the risks and rewards escalate, the outcomes can be most unpredictable.



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Movie Review: Dangerous Crossing (1953)

A woman-in-distress drama, Dangerous Crossing is a compact economy thriller, with plenty of spooky style enlivening the story of a troubled bride on a luxury ship.

In New York, newlyweds John and Ruth Bowman (Carl Betz and Jeanne Crain) board a transatlantic ocean liner, seemingly giddy with happiness. They only met a few weeks prior, with John helping heiress Ruth through a difficult patch. But as soon as the ship sails, John promptly disappears. Ruth is frazzled: none of the crew members can remember John coming on board and there is no record of him as a passenger. Ruth starts to question her sanity.

Doctor Paul Manning (Michael Rennie) is in charge of passenger health, and he tries to untangle Ruth's story. She then receives a phone call from John, claiming they are both in danger and she ought to not trust anyone. With the ship sailing through thick fog, Ruth has to decide whether she can confide in Paul, while holding out hope John will reappear with an explanation.

Filmed on a miniscule budget in a matter of days and on sets built for other movies, Dangerous Crossing makes good use of scarce resources. Leo Townsend's script is stripped of any externalities, and director Joseph M. Newman limits the action to 75 minutes, maintaining tight control over a traditional gaslighting plot.

The opening few minutes introduce the happy couple and all the events that will subsequently be questioned as unreal, casting genuine doubt on Ruth's mental health. Newman appropriates black and white to his advantage, and utilizes seaworthy fog, a relentless fog horn, nighttime shadows and mysterious men in trenchcoats (complete with limp and cane) to elevate the sense of conspiratorial dread engulfing Ruth.

Jeanne Crain and Michael Rennie are the film's two main assets, and they quickly embody their characters. Crain glows despite Ruth's predicament as she alternates between frantic, bewildered, vulnerable and determined. Rennie deploys his sturdy presence to try and calm the waters.

The resolution of the mystery is as trim as the rest of the production, Paul finally extracting from Ruth the threads of a conspiracy swirling in the background. Given the constraints, words have to suffice when flashbacks would have enriched the narrative. But Dangerous Crossing is all about doing more with less, cutting through choppy waters with admirable poise.

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Movie Review: The Day The Earth Stood Still (1951)

A classy science fiction film tackling disarmament themes, The Day The Earth Stood Still is a compact thriller with a timeless message.

A spaceship lands in Washington DC. On board are two aliens: the human-like Klaatu (Michael Rennie) and the giant robot Gort (Lock Martin). Klaatu is shot on arrival by panicked army soldiers, but anyway tries to communicate an important message with squabbling world leaders. Gort has advanced ray weapons capable of zapping and disintegrating any threat.

Klaatu slips away from the hospital and assumes the identity of John Carpenter to mingle with humans. He books into a small hotel and befriends war widow Helen (Patricia Neal) and her young son Bobby (Billy Gray). Klaatu makes contact with Professor Jacob Barnhardt (Sam Jaffe), who helps organize a scientist summit to hear Klaatu's message. But with a massive manhunt closing in on him and Helen's boyfriend Tom (Hugh Marlowe) starting to get suspicious, Klaatu may run out of time.

Smoothly directed by Robert Wise with a script by Edmund H. North, The Day The Earth Stood Still was an early attempt to inject mature and thought-provoking themes and substantive budgets and talent into the sci-fi genre. In this story the humans are the war mongering dummies and the aliens are the technologically and cerebrally more advanced sage advisors with a warning for Earth. On a cold war footing and treating the newcomers with the blunt tools of soldiers, machine guns and tanks, human behaviour is immediately revealed to be infantile.

The film looks seamless, the alien technology impressive and the mission focused. The imagery is often striking, and in portraying the spaceship, Gort and the display of alien abilities, Wise crafts enduring cinematic milestones.

But the story establishes its singular objective early, Klaatu out to gather world leaders to deliver a warning message of great consequence. It takes all of the 91 minutes of running time and plenty of distractions that would not stand up to logical scrutiny to arrive at the opportunity for the big speech. And the climax proves to be a truncated affair, predictable but also bewildering in its brevity. The sense that money, time or ideas ran out lingers in the air.

There are some either deliberate or coincidental religious undertones to be found, Klaatu's adopted initials of JC and fortuitous Carpenter name providing clues, and late in the film he undergoes a more obvious rejuvenation thanks to help from the all-powerful Gort. The symbolism, whether intentional or not, is confined to the background.

Michael Rennie reached a career highlight in his disciplined central performance as Klaatu. He succeeds in portraying the alien as a quick study but still a new arrival to the planet, using an easy but sharp demeanour to fulfil his mission. Patricia Neal is the most prominent and sympathetic of the humans. Hugh Marlowe as her boyfriend represents more human faults in the form of self-serving greed, while Sam Jaffe is suitably Einsteinesque as Professor Barnhardt.

The Day The Earth Stood Still raises an astute mirror in front of the human condition, revealing a worrisome image.

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