Five Finger Exercise (1962, U.S.A.)

The hit Broadway drama by Peter Shaffer (Amadeus) is vividly brought to the screen by director Daniel Mann (The Rose Tattoo) and screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett (It’s A Wonderful Life). The inimitable Rosalind Russell tears into the role of a wealthy Bay Area matriarch whose already shaky relations with her family — including her henpecked husband (Jack Hawkins, Lawrence of Arabia) and “sensitive” son (Richard Beymer, West Side Story) — are further strained when they take in a handsome music tutor (Academy Award®-winner Maximilian Schell; 1961, Best Actor, Judgment at Nuremberg), who has one or two secrets of his own. Russell’s real-life husband, Frederick Brisson, produced both the stage and film versions of this gripping tale, considered extremely daring for its time.