Sutherland gives outstanding portrait of German agent

Press, 15 February 1982, Page 13

Sutherland gives outstanding portrait of German agent

EYE OF THE NEEDLE Directed by Richard Marquand Screenplay by Stanley Mann “Eye of the Needle” (Regent) has been advertised as a spy-thriller — but your standard run-of-the-Sand-baggers it is not, while it does turn in to a respectable thriller. In fact, it is Donald Sutherland who holds the show together. With a face and voice like his. he is the perfect choice to cast in your next cold, sweat-drenched nightmare. He is the epitome of types who could smile and say, “It’s such a lovely evening,” and make shivers run down your spine. This is all besides the fact that Sutherland is an excellent actor who can place the guarantee of success and critical approval on virtually

any film in which he appears. Sutherland plays a coldblooded German secret agent, known by the code name of “The Needle" for his propensity to stick thin knives in to people for quick dispatch. (At my count, he dealt with seven.) To his trusting British friends and neighbours during the Second World War, he is known as Faber, and for the sake of simplicity, we shall call him Fred. Under his comfortable, English disguise, Fred seeks to thwart the Allied plans for the invasion of Europe in the spring c‘ 1944. At ti..U time, German Intelligence was piecing together. evidence of a huge army in East Anglia. Their reconnaissance planes brought back photographs of barracks and airfields, and General Patton was seen

taking his white bulldog for a walk. Of course, there was no army, the planes were wooden and canvas fakes, and Patton did not have a single man under his command. The object was to fool the enemy to believe that an invasion was due via Pas de Calais so that, on D-Day, the Normandy assault (from even further south in England) would have the advantage of surprise. The Germans were suspicious and sent Fred to find out what was really going on in East Anglia. He found fake aircraft and took

/photos,-, but also had been ordered to deliver them personally to Hitler — Fred being a trusted apple of the Fuehrer’s eye. To return to Germany, Fred was supposed to signal a U-boat off the coast of Scotland to pick him up. This sounds as though it could turn in to a good spycapade but we are now only about a quarter of the way .hrough this yarn when it turns in to a tale of frustrated domesticity on a Scottish isle, complicated by the arrival of the German spy. Poor Kate Nelligan is stuck there with a four-year-old son and a legless husband who lost his lower half in a car crash on their wedding night. Not being a Bader, he also lost his opportunity to become a fighter pilot, and drowns his frustration in booze with the local lighthouse keeper.

Not much more need be said about the plot except that Fred spends the rest of the show developing a relationship with Nelligan and trying to get off the island. The last three-quarters of "Eye of the Needle” are deftly paced for full suspense, with Nelligan’s passion proving her blind to what is going on, while British Intelligence is trying to get to the island before the U-boat. Sutherland and Nelligan (both native Canadians) give remarkably fine performances, with the lady’s strong good looks adding another fillip. However, pondering on the title of the film, I am still not sure whether the "eye” referred to Fred and the Biblical camel which also could not pass through it or to Fred's "needle."

AT THE CINEMA 4