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Sunday, February 25, 2018

5 FINGERS (1952)

James Mason, who stars both here & in Joseph Mankiewicz’s next (as Brutus in an M-G-M try at Shakespeare’s JULIUS CAESAR/’53), thought 5 FINGERS Mank’s last well-directed film. If exaggeration, it's not by much; and leaves this as a dandy farewell to 20th/Fox, where he did his best work including ALL ABOUT EVE/’50; LETTER TO THREE WIVES/’49; GHOST AND MRS. MUIR/’47. This lesser-known title belongs right with them. (Something that can’t be said for his prodigal return on CLEOPATRA/’63.) A fact-inspired WWII spy story about Mason, ultra-smooth valet to Turkey’s British Ambassador Walter Hampden, he’s blithely photographing Top Secret Documents and selling them to the Germans. They pay well, but can’t quite believe in their bounty, sure that Mason is really working for the Brits. Working off Michael Wilson’s script (substantially re-dialogued with characteristic Mankiewicz wit & wisdom), the film is beautifully crafted & peerlessly cast; showing more visual elan than Mank ever gave to his self-originated projects where he was apt to ‘sit’ on his own cleverness & sophistication. (As if he expected people to be jotting down wordplay.) Here, he keeps on the move, and (presumably) sticks to Wilson’s superb dramatic structure. Plus, they’ve a wild card to play (a fictional one), bringing in a striking class-conscious romance between Mason and old employer, Danielle Darrieux, a glamorous Polish Countess scratching for cash on the Embassy Party Circuit in neutral Turkey. A year before EARRINGS OF MADAME D . . . , she’s properly devastating, turning a role that’s two-thirds dramatic stratagem into a believable, touching & hardheadedly venal charmer. It makes for a supremely satisfying double-twist ending.

DOUBLE-BILL: Mason's plan is to skedaddle off to Brazil with all that Nazi loot. You’ll find him there 25 years later, not as amoral neutral but as retired Nazi in THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL/’78.

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