Eye of the Needle (1981)

☆ ☆ ☆

Eye of the Needle (1981) – R. Marquand

The score by Miklós Rózsa (who scored so many films from Hollywood’s Golden Age, such as Spellbound, The Killers, The Asphalt Jungle, Moonfleet, Ben-Hur, and countless more) really elevates this otherwise standard spy story (from the novel by Ken Follett) to something more classical (if not classic).  Those swirling strings when the tension is high!  Donald Sutherland plays a Nazi spy (“the needle” because he kills with a stiletto knife) who, in the first half of the film is undercover in London, ordered by Hitler to find out where the Allied D-Day invasion will happen.  Once his cover is blown (and he has discovered the Allied plans), he escapes to a lonely (and very scenic) island off the coast of Scotland to await his U-boat rendezvous.  On that island, he meets Kate Nelligan who lives there alone with her disabled husband and preschool son, not very happily since her husband is bitter and mean.  A romance develops and viewers are put on edge, knowing what Nelligan does not. Scotland Yard begins to close in.  The husband begins to suspect.  Rózsa’s score swirls.  And things resolve as you know they must, as they would in the Golden Age of Hollywood.  And there is something reassuring, if not exactly ground-breaking, about that. (Direction is by Richard Marquand who was subsequently hired for Return of the Jedi).