Mark Turner Author Ken Follett was making a name for himself long before the current crop of spy thriller authors came along. Along with a few other writers he took on the job of creating a believable world of spies in the tradition of Ian Fleming's James Bond and the sales of their books led to those being created today. In 1976 he wrote the novel EYE OF THE NEEDLE and in 1981 it was made into a feature film. The movie didn't do amazing box office but it did offer a well thought out slow burn spy thriller that takes place in WWII.It's shortly before D-Day and preparations are in order to launch an attack against Germany by the allied forces. Germany has been doing their best to infiltrate England and the find out when the attack will come and where it will come from. Inserted into the country their top spy, a ruthless assassin and sociopath, has discovered that a fake mockup has been created to divert the Germans. As he is about to be caught he escapes to a remote island and now must wait to be picked up by a U-boat.The spy is Heinrich Faber (Donald Sutherland), known as "The Needle" because of his weapon of choice for assassination is a stiletto. When he arrives at the island he meets its only inhabitants, the disabled man of the house David (Christopher Cazenove), his wife Lucy (Kate Nelligan) and their young son Joe. Counting on their hospitality he stays with them a few days. In that short amount of time a romance between Faber and Lucy unfolds, two lonely people for different reasons brought together.For Faber his life is one of solitude and the opportunity for a connection to another human being is rare at best. For Lucy we have a woman whose husband has withdrawn from the world due to the injury that left him disabled. We are presented with two people who should not have the affair that they do but because of the situations life has left them in they find one another.David becomes suspicious of Faber and looks into just who he is and what he has with him. The result of his investigation is murder at the hands of Faber. When Lucy realizes what is going on it is left to her to stop this spy from contacted his U-boat and taking information with him that will cause England to lose the war. With her life and that of her young son in the way will she be up to the task at hand? And will the romance that came between the two prevent either from doing what they must? The movie is a slow burn, a thriller that unspools the story at a pace that offers more story than action. It takes its time to place the characters in the right place, to maneuver them into emotional moments and to allow the viewer to get to know each of them before events occur. We understand why David is bitter, why Lucy is lonely and why Faber is determined to complete his mission. Life is messy and the intersecting of these three people shows how unpredictable it can be.Director Richard Marquand has done a fantastic job of creating both the remote location of the small island with the remote feelings on hand in the characters. It is this combination that pulls us in to wonder what will happen, to hope for the best and to fear the worst. The fact that Faber at any moment could just kill all three people, including a young child, makes him one of the more dangerous characters seen on film. And yet we understand why Lucy is drawn to him due to her circumstances.All of the actors involved give it their best. It isn't a splashy movie but a subtle one and their performances match that subtlety. For me this was the second film I'd seen Nelligan in, the first being Dracula. She does a great job here but for some reason never made it to mega-star status. She should have. Sutherland shows that his acting chops were not a fluke in and that he is incredibly talented.As I said the movie did respectable business but was not a smash hit. Fortunately we have the chance to see it in pristine condition with this release from Twilight Time. The odds of finding a better looking edition of this movie are unlikely. Extras include an isolated score track, audio commentary with music historian Jon Burlingame and film historians Julie Kirgo and Nick Redman and the original theatrical trailer. As with all Twilight Time editions this one is limited to just 3,000 copies so fans will want to make sure they pick one up before they are gone.

dakjets This film is maybe a lost treasure, and it deserves to be more well known than it actually is. This is a fascinating and intense spy movie, and the plot takes place during the second world war. Donald Sutherland plays the part of the spy very convincing, ice cold and a character with a ruthless determination to get what he wants, really at all costs. The film is very well done, and eventually ends up as a story of lost love, and hard measures that needs to be taken. The casting is brilliant, and I think the films atmosphere really manages to take you back in a world in war, and different peoples way of life in these circumstances. This makes this film authentic and complete. (sorry about my English)

edwagreen Wonderful World War 11 thriller with Donald Sutherland and Kate Nelligan providing fine chemistry and two people brought together by fate, he is a German spy trying to get back to Germany with information about D-Day and she is trapped in a bad marriage with a husband who lost his legs on their wedding day.There is a wonderful score by Miklos Rosza in this film. It provides crescendo similar to that of Rosza's Oscar-winning scoring of "Ben-Hur" in 1959. With this theme, you can immediately identify it as a work of Miklos Rosza. His distinct style of musical scoring has yet to be topped.Sutherland is terrific as the spy who was supposedly revered by Hitler himself. A loner who is vicious to the core, his soft-spoken facade masks a killer beyond belief. Nelligan, looking for love, thinks that she has found it until she realizes that Sutherland has killed her husband.The tension builds to a climatic ending where the Nelligan character has done the allies a tremendous service.

lhhung_himself I loved the first 100 minutes of the film. This is an old-school war movie, back in the days where there was a truly unavoidable war and the belief in a higher cause. Personal dramas take second place to the consequences of losing the war and the responsibility that entails on both sides. But people are people and no matter how noble or cold-blooded, there is always that conflict between duty and desire.For the most part, the film is a taut yet believable thriller. Everything that Donald Sutherland does is completely in character, as are the reactions of those around him. The historical details are fairly accurate (except for the hyperbole about losing the war if the D-Day site were known) which is something rare these days. The triangle is believable, as are the conflicts that develop as we learn about our protagonists.But then we get to the climactic scene at the end. The actions of our confused heroine as she flees from Sutherland are a bit annoying but explainable - and it all could have worked except for the presence of the child. I might believe that Sutherland would leave her alive (though it might have worked better had she not cut off his fingers..). I might possibly believe that she could fall in love with a man enough in two days to forget that he killed her husband, and murdered her shepherd friend. I just can't believe that after this man threatens her child that she would feel that strongly for him. She's not *that* weak especially after she had just shocked herself in an attempt to prevent him from completing his mission. So the entire stumbling sequence to get to the scene at the end where they gaze into each others eyes is *so* contrived. While such weak plot devices are everywhere these days, the lazy scripting is an insult to the rest of the film.But if you ignore that bit - it's very good.