Eye of the Needle
Added 1/30/2010
Quick delivery. Quality product. Excellent entertainment - great photography. The finest spy thriller ever written and put on the silver screen. I am a very happy customer.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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A Fantasy Spy Thriller
Added 1/10/2010
Eye of the Needle, 1981 film
The film begins in wartime Great Britain after the Fall of France. Troops are boarding trains (to Finland?). A young RAF pilot is getting married. Henry Favor works at the train station, his landlady has a surprise. Four years pass. That married couple lives in a cottage on tiny Storm Island. They have problems. "The Needle" sends and receives messages to Berlin. His assignment is to check the strength of Patton's army in East Anglia. Favor leaves no witnesses when he escapes. Sergeant Billy Parkin is called to identify "Henry Favor", "the Needle". Favor discovers the decoys! He escapes detection again, the passes a message to a neutral diplomat. MI5 grabs the diplomat, the "Needle" escapes at a train station. The plan is to let Billy identify Favor, but Favor hears the voice and escapes again.
Favor's portrait is in the newspaper so people can identify him. Favor steals a small boat to sail away to contact the U-boat. The seas are rough, the boat strikes a rock, and Favor escapes again. [Believable?] Favor lands at the home of the couple we met at the beginning of this story. Lucy the mother bathes her child. David raises sheep. They are isolated on Storm Island. [Coffee and gasoline were rationed.] "Is it that obvious?" Lucy is lonely. Favor says he is a writer. David found that can of film and suspects Favor. Another problem solved. Was Favor delayed by Lucy? Later Lucy finds David by the shore, he won't talk. She knows Favor lied about David! She drives away to escape Favor in the pouring rain. She finds Tom, but he can't help her. Lucy knows how to handle a firearm, or an axe! The police tell her to destroy the radio. There is dramatic tension when Lucy prevents the radio from working! Will Favor escape in a small boat? Will help arrive at the island in time?
The efficient British Secret Service caught all the German spies sent to England in WW 2. The defeat of Germany meant their remaining secret archives were read. The "Ultra Secret" played a big part in this. This story is an entertaining fantasy. But it does show how the right to keep and bear arms existed in war-time Britain (until 1946).
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
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An intelligent slasher flick
Added 3/23/2009
This a film of two halves and a bit of a surprise. It begins by being a spy story but slowly transforms into a slasher movie on a par with and a lot scarier than Halloween or Friday the 13th. Basically imagine that you live on an island and a German spy is trying to escape from England with a microfilm of photographs that could win the war for the Nazis. Imagine that this ruthless killer finds himself trapped on an island with an only family living there. It is a terrifying film and in many ways it reminds me of Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs. If you can sit through this without closing your eyes you are a brave one. Donald Sutherland is remarkably creepy.
2 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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A Stab at Genius
Added 4/16/2008
The Film: Ken Follett's WWII espionage thriller brought to the screen in 1981 by director Richard Marquand.
The basic plot: 'The Needle' is a Nazi spy in Britain, ruthlessly stabbing his enemies as he races to stay a half-step ahead of quite-competent MI5 C.I. agents. In 1944, he must get information and get back to Germany to expose the Patton-Calais deception. Weather and circumstances strand him on remote Storm Island, where he must meet a U-boat.
Acting: Sutherland's icy, reptilian qualities (think Backdraft and Casanova) are perfectly suited to the spy character--he's brilliant. Kate Nelligan delivers a sturdy performance as a plucky resident of Storm Island.
Nice editing; compact, well-paced plot with some interesting twists. Interesting role reversals, sexual metaphors, and atmospherics.
Production values were high; the film has no cheap effects or CG; it stands up well and looks good on the DVD.
Personal enjoyment: The Brits are portrayed as ever-polite but in their own way, even the old gaffers and other common folk are as ruthless as the spy, and all are passionate about helping 'do their bit.'
If you like WWII movies, spy thrillers, Sutherland, or ken Follett novels, by all means buy this little gem.
0 out of 1 people found this helpful.
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Diagnosing Sutherland's character, the Needle
Added 3/15/2008
I watched this movie for the first time recently on cable and found it so engrossing that I watched it a second time a week later -- and now I'm on amazon reading the reviews and considering whether to purchase it. I decided to comment on Sutherland's character, the Needle, because as a relatively new psychotherapist I found myself wondering during the first half of the film whether this man was sociopathic (I have to disagree with another reviewer who said he was "psychotic") or whether he was turning off whatever feelings he might have about killing because it was what he had to do. In other words, would this man have the capacity to kill were it not socially sanctioned and viewed as a necessity during wartime? Arguably, he might not have killed Kate Nelligan's husband had he not confronted him about the camera film of the airplanes and not killed the lighthouse keeper if he had been able to use the wireless without being discovered. He did not harm Kate Nelligan or her son, even when she chopped off part of his hand and fried the wireless (and he looked at her burnt fingers with a subtle compassion). This tells me he was capable of caring, if not love. We have hints to his adult personality, as influenced by his chiildhood, from comments he made about parents essentially using children for their needs and not really loving them (we assume he was talking about himself). But he said it in a way that felt like he had an understanding of his childhood as opposed to a person who was simply acting out from repressed rage. What do others think? Is he sociopathic (anti-social personality disorder would be the diagnosis according to the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the DSM-IV TR), does he have some sociopathy but not rigidified enough to call him personality disordered, or a normal guy capable of handling complex and highly stressful situations in wartime (and following through on what others need him to do, as socialized to do by his parents)? I don't think a person suffering from unresolved childhood trauma (the fight, flight, or freeze response) would be able to hold it together and think as clearly as he was able to over an extended period of time either. Thoughts?
One more question: a couple of reviewers mentioned that this DVD was an edited version of the film. Is this true? If so, where can one get an unedited version?
0 out of 2 people found this helpful.
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Eye of the Needle
Added 1/30/2010
Quick delivery. Quality product. Excellent entertainment - great photography. The finest spy thriller ever written and put on the silver screen. I am a very happy customer.
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
A Fantasy Spy Thriller
Added 1/10/2010
Eye of the Needle, 1981 film
The film begins in wartime Great Britain after the Fall of France. Troops are boarding trains (to Finland?). A young RAF pilot is getting married. Henry Favor works at the train station, his landlady has a surprise. Four years pass. That married couple lives in a cottage on tiny Storm Island. They have problems. "The Needle" sends and receives messages to Berlin. His assignment is to check the strength of Patton's army in East Anglia. Favor leaves no witnesses when he escapes. Sergeant Billy Parkin is called to identify "Henry Favor", "the Needle". Favor discovers the decoys! He escapes detection again, the passes a message to a neutral diplomat. MI5 grabs the diplomat, the "Needle" escapes at a train station. The plan is to let Billy identify Favor, but Favor hears the voice and escapes again.
Favor's portrait is in the newspaper so people can identify him. Favor steals a small boat to sail away to contact the U-boat. The seas are rough, the boat strikes a rock, and Favor escapes again. [Believable?] Favor lands at the home of the couple we met at the beginning of this story. Lucy the mother bathes her child. David raises sheep. They are isolated on Storm Island. [Coffee and gasoline were rationed.] "Is it that obvious?" Lucy is lonely. Favor says he is a writer. David found that can of film and suspects Favor. Another problem solved. Was Favor delayed by Lucy? Later Lucy finds David by the shore, he won't talk. She knows Favor lied about David! She drives away to escape Favor in the pouring rain. She finds Tom, but he can't help her. Lucy knows how to handle a firearm, or an axe! The police tell her to destroy the radio. There is dramatic tension when Lucy prevents the radio from working! Will Favor escape in a small boat? Will help arrive at the island in time?
The efficient British Secret Service caught all the German spies sent to England in WW 2. The defeat of Germany meant their remaining secret archives were read. The "Ultra Secret" played a big part in this. This story is an entertaining fantasy. But it does show how the right to keep and bear arms existed in war-time Britain (until 1946).
0 out of 0 people found this helpful.
|
An intelligent slasher flick
Added 3/23/2009
This a film of two halves and a bit of a surprise. It begins by being a spy story but slowly transforms into a slasher movie on a par with and a lot scarier than Halloween or Friday the 13th. Basically imagine that you live on an island and a German spy is trying to escape from England with a microfilm of photographs that could win the war for the Nazis. Imagine that this ruthless killer finds himself trapped on an island with an only family living there. It is a terrifying film and in many ways it reminds me of Sam Peckinpah's Straw Dogs. If you can sit through this without closing your eyes you are a brave one. Donald Sutherland is remarkably creepy.
2 out of 3 people found this helpful.
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