Once Again On History In The Conditional-Or In The Spy Thriller Conditional-The Film Adaptation Of Ken Follet’s “Eye Of The Needle” (1981) -A Film Review

DVD Review

By Will Bradley

Eye Of The Needle, starring Donald Sutherland, Kate Nelligan, 1981

No question, although one might posit that we or they should move on, the whole Hitler saga from World War II has made many a writer, spy thriller writer, producers and directors plenty of gold, plenty of coin. Especially around the question of what would have been the response if, well, let’s say Hitler had known definitively that the Allied invasion to free Occupied Europe (occupied by Hitler and his minions) was to be at Normandy Beach rather than elsewhere come D-Day. That is no abstract question for the protagonists and their foes in the film under review the adaptation of Ken Follet’s Eye Of The Needle. Moreover not only are profession academic, men of learning and such, smitten with such speculations but your average thriller writer had taken up the cudgels big time. Of course history in the conditional is always tricky for the academic, for the professor with one big idea contingent on that vague conditional but apparently is the fount of wisdom for the thriller boys and girls.

Here is why for Follet devotees. Henry, I will follow Lance Lawrence’s’ recent trope of saying somebody, so Henry somebody in this case, played by pliable Donald Sutherland,   who the hell knows since he is a high-end, high-born German spy, placed in England even before World War II started that Auden September 1939 when he, Auden, blew town, the agent using a million aliases when it suited him was a key operative keeping tabs on what the freaking Brits were doing for war preparations. He would not let anything get in his way including nosey landladies and the trademark way of dealing with such trouble at the end of a stiletto, hence needle, the eye part you can figure out. He was able to operate free as a bird for most of the war until things got dark in Germany, better, took a turn for the worse on the Eastern Front where the Russians, who bore the brunt of the action against madman Hitler and his crowd, started their long journey to Berlin and the raising of the red flag over part of that city. What they wanted to know, what Hitler wanted to know, and this is good military policy mad men or not, was where General Patton was going to launch what even Hitler knew was a run to Berlin from the West. But where. That was Henry somebody’s task-to find out and to deliver the proof to the big boss himself in Berlin via a convenient U-boat off the Scottish coast.

Normally such an operation by a pro like Needle would be a piece of cake and in real life maybe that would settle things but this is spy thriller theater, so everything has to be a travail-and it is. Needle got the definitive proof on film and that was the start of his journey home. The problem was the Brits, Scotland Yard, were on to him, knew he has done some nasty things to get and keep Father Hitler in power- and information. The chase was on with the coppers about two, maybe seven steps behind the elusive Needle. Until he reached Storm Island, well-named having been shipwrecked with a stolen boat during a storm, a trawler, as that U-boat waited impatiently for his call. The Storm Island situation despite its isolation though would be Needle’s downfall once he encountered an embittered former Royal Air Force pilot who lost his legs in a civilian automobile accident of his own mistaken doing, his wife and child all who have left sweet home London for the boondocks and stormy weather.

Needle figured to be on easy street via this nice quiet hellish homestead as he waited for that U-boat. Problem though is grilled by that embittered pilot, and bedded if you can believe this, by that neglected wife, played by Kate Nelligan, who was just lonely because of hubby’s neglect as was Needle since he was a loner. Along the way said pilot got wise to our Needle but paid the price for that knowledge with a dip face-down in the cliff-drenched waters. Wifey, after a few rolls in the hay with Needle which she did not complain about, finally learned the truth when she discovered her husband’s body and subsequently Needle made what would be his fatal mistake by saying he had just seen her husband alive. Knowing he was nothing but a German agent she went mano a mano with him to protect herself and her son. In the end that is enough to seal Needle’s doom long before the coppers showed up. Still I wonder if Needle had gotten to the U-boat and gotten to see his master in Berlin whether Hitler knowing the route of the invasion would have changed things. Better ask a military historian.