Eye of the Needle

England, 1944. Faber, a German agent, gets hold of proof that the Allies have built a fake preparation for the Normandy landings: plywood aircraft standing in an empty field. He has to get the information to Berlin. A storm throws him onto a small island off Scotland, where a disabled man lives with his wife Lucy and their child. The subject is not espionage but the four days on the island. Faber is a cold killer and Lucy's marriage is over; what forms between them is both genuine and entirely instrumental. The form splits in two: a chase across England and a closed-room tension on the island. The second part is almost entirely four people and a house. The source is the novel that was Ken Follett's first great success. The title comes from Faber's method of leaving nobody behind him. It is among the first cinema adaptations of Follett's books and keeps the most argued-over element of the novel, the decision at the end, exactly as written. Richard Marquand directs, and was chosen to make Return of the Jedi shortly afterwards. Donald Sutherland plays Faber and Kate Nelligan plays Lucy. Who it is for: viewers who like Second World War spy thrillers and confined-space storytelling. Who it is not for: anyone wanting to attach to the protagonist; the film keeps him deliberately unpleasant.