Five Fingers

It's hard to believe that some of you remember or saw this show. The show was really a precursor to the Bond movies and for TV in its day, was produced very well. My family and I loved watching David Hedison and had a special reason for watching Luciana Paluzzi. She is our cousin and we were all so proud of her. Ben, your comments about how beautiful she was is spot on, but Luciana was/is extremely smart as well. My grandfather, Vincenzo Paluzzi, told us that before being discovered as an actress, Luciana was studying to be a scientist. She went on to play opposite Sean Connery in the James Bond movie Thunderball. Today, an updated show like would be a hit...are you listening J.Abrams?

I remember this show and I wish it would come out on DVD, it was an interesting show at the time long before the James Bond, Matt Helm, and Our Man Flint Films came out. It also came out long before TV shows like the Wild Wild West, Man From Uncle, Girl From Uncle,Seacret Agent Man, The Avengers, and even Get Smart. I have looked for this series for years and have not been able to find it on DVD or VHS. I wish someone had an episode list of the whole series and would publish it on the IMDb. I did not remember David Hedison being in the show the one that I remembered was Suzana Puluzzi because she was so good looking back then.

Five Fingers was a series of espionage and intrigue ahead of its time in 1959. David Hedison was the male protagonist and a for a time acquired a female following as a "hunk." The female star, Italian actress Luciana Paluzzi was one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen on TV. Her beauty was not lost on movie producers who cast her opposite Sean Connery in the James Bond film "Thunderball" in 1965. It would be interesting to know if any of these TV episodes were ever preserved and could be watched today. Probably not.

I am not old enough to have seen this series during its original run, I came across it while wandering round the internet looking for old TV programmes. The Internet Archive has preserved six out of the 16 episodes, with variable sound and picture quality, but I think they are enough to give a good overall impression of what the series was like.

It stars David Hedison and Luciana. Paluzzi. Hedison plays Victor Sebastian, a CIA agent with the code name Five Fingers. He has a cover job as a theatrical agent whose company has offices in London, Paris and New York. This gives him a plausible excuse to travel in both continents while he carries out counterespionage work. On occasion he works as a double agent, appearing to act on behalf of The Party (presumably the Russian Communist Party, though the country isn't named in the episodes i saw) such as in the episode The Unknown Town.

Paluzzi plays Sabine Genet, one of his clients, a singer for whom he arranges concert bookings and she later becomes his girlfriend. She knows nothing about his second job. This gives her a number of comic scenes where he has to interrupt or cancel their dates to carry out his counterespionage work, to her great annoyance, and he tells her poorly improvised lies to try to explain his absences. Paluzzi has the less substantial role and her character is presented as naive and a little capricious. However in the episode Dossier she is persuaded by another agent to agree to undertake to make it possible for Sebastian to get into an enemy agent's well guarded mansion, though still without knowing why he wants to do so. She pulls this off with perfect confidence. And it seems at some point in the series she becomes aware of his work because in the episode The Judas Goat she is officially employed to help Sebastian with an assignment..

The series is well made with tight scripts, well paced action, lots of suspense and enough plot twists to keep the viewer guessing how each story will turn out. The acting is also consistently good and the guest characters get good enough dialogue and characterisation to make them memorable.

I do not know why this series was not continued for longer, it is very entertaining and well made for its time. What I have read about it indicates that it might have lost in the ratings competition.because it was scheduled at the same time as a more popular rival series. Pity.

There were many many shows that most people don't remember. This is one of them, but not because it wasn't a great show but because it aired in the days when there weren't many channels available plus the fact that it only lasted a mere 16 episodes. I have four episodes on tape and wish I could have seen the other episodes. It was a very well-made series with David Hedison as a double agent under the guise of a talent agent. This was Hedison's first TV series and he would later become famous for his role in 'Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea', which would last for an amazing 110 episodes. If I could choose which TV series I would like to see on DVD, 'Five Fingers' would be at the top of my list.