Five Fingers (TV series)


Five Fingers is an NBC adventure/drama series set in Europe during the Cold War loosely based on the 1952 film 5 Fingers, starring James Mason and Danielle Darrieux. It ran from October 3, 1959, to January 9, 1960.
David Hedison starred as Victor Sebastian, an American counterintelligence officer with the code name "Five Fingers". Luciana Paluzzi played Simone Genet, Sebastian's singer client and romantic interest. Paul Burke played Robertson, Sebastian's contact man.
Five Fingers itself was based on the book Operation Cicero by Ludwig Carl Moyzisch and on the memoirs of Elyesa Bazna. Bazna was something of an antihero in real life ; the television series transformed the character from a World War II-era mercenary Albanian into a Cold War era heroic American. Sebastian posed as a Communist to gain information on party activities. His public cover was that of a theatrical booking agent for clubs and cafes throughout Europe.

Episodes and guest stars

Episodes and notable guest stars include:
Two additional episodes, "A Shot in the Dark" and "Counterfeit", were unaired.

Production notes

and Herbert Bayard Swope, Jr., son of legendary journalist Herbert Bayard Swope, were the producers of Five Fingers.
Hedison recalls on his website that he was preparing to come to work for the seventeenth episode of the series when he was notified that the program had been cancelled without warning. Five Fingers was particularly popular in Australia, but was not on the air long enough in the United States to attract a sufficient following to survive even a full season. The series did have a brief syndicated run on local stations in the United States despite the short number of episodes
Manulis produced Five Fingers in association with 20th Century Fox Television. He also produced the CBS sitcom, The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis starring Dwayne Hickman. Five Fingers aired at 9:30 Eastern on Saturdays opposite two half-hour western series, Richard Boone's Have Gun - Will Travel and James Arness's Gunsmoke on CBS and the second half of ABC's The Lawrence Welk Show.

UK theatrical runs

In 1961 in the UK, 20th Century Fox used eight episodes as supporting films for circuit releases of their main features:-
The Rank release played at the prime Odeon and Gaumont cinemas. The National release played at Rank's secondary outlets, although at this time it still was allocated the odd decent booking.