TCM's Donald Sutherland tribute

Mary Tyler Moore, Timothy Hutton, and Donald Sutherland in Ordinary People (1980) (10:15 PM)

Actor Donald Sutherland died back in June. TCM is now getting around to doing a programming tribute to him tonight (Sept. 26), with four of his films:

8:00 PM M*A*S*H;
10:15 PM Ordingary People;
12:30 AM Klute; and
2:30 AM Kelly's Heroes.

I've blogged about all four of those movies before, but as it turns out I've got one of Sutherland's movies that I haven't blogged about yet. So I figured today would be a good time to put up a post on it even though it's not showing. That movie is Eye of the Needle.

The movie starts off in London in 1940, which it doesn't take much to recall is the height of the Blitz during the early stages of World War II. Henry Faber (Sutherland) works in some sort of Ministry of Defence-type job, where adolescent Billy (Philip Martin Brown) looks up to him and hopes to join some branch of the military to fight Germany, although no branch has accepted him yet. Out in the Home Counties, Lucy (Kate Nelligan) and David (Christopher Cazenove) are about to get married before he goes off to fight. He gets too excited driving away from the wedding, and, swerving to miss a lorry, drives into a ravine.

Henry goes off for a weekend and stays with some kindly older woman. She brings up some tea for him, only to find him not answering her calls. When she opens the door to his room, she hears him talking -- on a radio -- in German! Obviously, Henry is some sort of agent working for the Nazis, and his cover has just been blown. So Henry pulls out a stiletto, and stabs the poor woman dead. Now, this is for me the first major plot hole, as you'd have to think the authorities would consider Henry the prime suspect when they find the woman dead, not that they know anything about him being a turncoat.

Fast forward four years to the spring of 1944, and Storm Island off the west coast of Scotland. David and Lucy did not die in the car crash, although David wound up wheelchair-bound. So he's up in Scotland raising sheep to do his part in the war effort while Lucy helps raise their young son. These two subplots have to come together, don't they? Sure enough, that's not long in coming. Faber goes spying somewhere eastish of London. He hires a boat, and the guy on the canal helpfully informs him of a restricted area ahead, not knowing that Henry wants to go precisely there.

Gen. George Patton is in charge of a base there, and that's what Henry's target is. Henry is able to look into the base, where he sees a whole bunch of planes. Somehow, he's able to cut through the fence around the base, and spy unmolested, where he inadvertently causes a bit of sabotage by... breaking a propeller off one of the planes! It's here that he discovers these "airplanes" are actually made of plywood, which is important to know. The Nazis know there are two possible places for the Americans and British to invade: over the Strait of Dover, or into Normandy by the English Channel. Finding a bunch of plywood planes here is a pretty dead giveaway that the Allies are going to invade Normandy, giving the Germans a chance to fortify their position.

But Henry has to get his information to Germany, which means making contact with the German military. The rendezvous point is... a submarine not far off the coast of Scotland, near Storm Island. Henry makes his way up there, although by this time the British authorities are on his case, not that Henry has tried to shave off his moustache, dye his hair, or do anything else to disguise himself. And when he tries to get to the submarine, one of the island's famous storms pops up, sinking his boat and stranding him on the island, which is how he comes into contact with Lucy and David. David at least is smart enough to realize something is wrong, not that he knows what, but can anybody stop Henry from making his rendezvous?

Eye of the Needle is an entertaining enough movie, but for me it has some problems in the form of plot holes, starting with that first murder (Henry kills several more people over the course of the movie). It seems shocking to me that Henry is able to go around the UK for a full four years after that murder without being found out. Lucy also seems way too trusting of this stranger for her own good, even though this is necessary to drive the plot.

But Sutherland gives a good enough performance to make the movie eminently watchable even in spite of the script issues. So while Eye of the Needle isn't great, it's still enjoyable enough for a rainy evening.