I never heard the term 'fingersmith' before, that's a pretty nice and sanitized way of calling one a pickpocket. I got a kick out of the motorcycle cop (John Forgeham) in this one, he had more than a share of plausible excuses he must have heard dozens of times before when he pulled Paul Duveen (Rod Taylor) over. The story is cleverly written, with passenger Michael Fish (Cyril Cusack) demonstrating various sides to his con-man character, all the while taking Duveen sufficiently into his confidence to pull off the ultimate heist. Roald Dahl opened this story with his own experience about a pair of hitchhikers that wound up turning him off to the whole idea. Using the hitchhiking theme, Rod Serling also came up with a story with the same title in the first season of his Twilight Zone series. That one turned out to be even more ominous than this one, with Inger Stevens in the role of the unlucky driver.
Review of The Hitch-Hiker
