FIVE FINGERS (1952) **1/2 Only 7 years after the big one and Hollywood's letting guys with names like Otto Lang make WWII films in which British protagonists are the bad guys? Noam Chomsky was right! Or Joe McCarthy, or... It's a complex world and one well presented here in a true story of espionage and intrigue. The great irony is how well the characters and their motivation line up with malfeasants from last night's news. James Mason, a cabin boy having raised himself up to the upper echelon of British aristocracy male-servants, arrogant but serving drinks when ordered to, is the prototype for the corporate insider fall-guys protecting their masters' "plausible denial." To hear the big boys tell it no one has any idea what's going on besides those economic class surfers. Danielle Darrieux is the blueprint trophy wife, hopelessly overconvinced by what she considers her beauty, and suffering from the delusion, and able to project it onto assorted lackeys, that she has charm. And willing to trade it all, not just for money but for money and any consequential illusion of position. On a psychological level the film's an interesting audience study: here's Mason, a guy with no morals or scruples assisting the Nazis of all people, but he's working so hard and taking so many chances that we feel badly for him when he gets dumped by a girl that no one in their right mind would want. So he ends up dining alone in Rio with wads of banknotes. Hard work and gambling with loaded dice pays. Or does it? An interesting assignment for first year law students, still harboring some semblance of sensibilities regarding right and wrong, would be to write a debate cheat sheet entitled "Resolved: Mason harmed no one and his profit was deserved, your honour." Start out by pointing out that the Nazis didn't act on the information that they were forwarded, add in the fact Nazi operatives were ultimately unmasked, mix in the spices of improved British security, Mason's preoccupation with conformity to the laws of the sovereign Turkish state, and his transfer of Nazi wealth to the unalligned Swiss; and top off with the fact that Mason accomplished all at great risk to himself. There should probably be minimum penalties for people who turn in stuff like that. Actually, I'm sure that there are. Not something that "stimulates the blood and makes heroes of all who drink it."