Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

RyothChatty ridiculous rating

BroadcastChic Excellent, a Must See

Kinley This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Sjhm Yes, it is now a little dated, but back in 1971 it was more realistic than the James Bond films with their themes of madmen seeking world domination. However, for all that, the story of greed, theft, murder, and hostage taking is timeless. Anthony Hopkins makes a credible man of action, more than ably supported by Corin Redgrave as his intelligence officer sidekick. Robert Morley provides a deft turn as Sir Arthur Arnford-Jones the Whitehall Mandarin sitting behind his immaculately polished antique desk. The pace is a little frenetic at times, and you can't help feeling that perhaps a little more development time was needed between "Uncle Arthur's" arrival in Scotland and the final denouement. There are some interesting and well known goofs to spot along the way, but all things considered this is a gripping, well put together, and gritty thriller which is certainly worth watching.

Terrell-4 Even at 34 Anthony Hopkins made an unlikely hero for a rousing adventure thriller such as When Eight Bells Toll, based on the book by Alistair Maclean. Hopkins face looks so young, with even a hint of cherubic baby fat. His height and build are only average. And 36 years later it's hard to erase the knowledge of the future Hannibal Lecter, James Stevens, Henry Wilcox and Titus Andronicus, or for that matter much of the dreck he's been appearing in these last few years. Still, Hopkins carries off the role of Commander Philip Calvert, an agent for British Naval Intelligence, with aplomb. First, Hopkins can act. He's completely assured in a role which sometimes calls for the suspension of belief. His voice is quick and confident. He knows how to underplay. Second, he's physically quick. The role calls for a lot of clambering up and down cliffs, running up staircases and along paths, swimming in a scuba outfit and engaging bad guys in fistfights. There are enough medium shots to see that Hopkins is doing a great deal of the action himself. Third, he's intelligent and gives an intelligent performance. Why is Calvert doing all this stuff? Because gold bullion is being pirated from ships off the coast of Scotland's western highlands. Calvert, tough, disrespectful of authority, as unintimidated by Naval bureaucracy as he is by killers, is sent in undercover to investigate. What he finds, aided by a young Naval helper (and we know the fate that always awaits young helpers), involves Sir Anthony Skouras (Jack Hawkins), a very rich tycoon on a plush yacht anchored in a stormy loch, Charlotte (Nathalie Delon), introduced as Sir Anthony's young wife, and Lord Charnley (Derek Bond), who appears to be Sir Anthony's great and good friend. Occasionally checking in with Calvert is his boss in London, a fat and seemingly complaisant spymaster called Uncle Albert (Robert Morley). When Calvert, suspicions aroused, requests that Sir Anthony be vetted, Uncle Albert is deeply offended. "He's a member of my club! He's on the wine committee!" In an amusing plot development, Uncle Albert winds up coming to the loch to find out what's really going on. Since by now Calvert's young sidekick (played by a young Corin Redgrave) is no longer with us, Uncle Albert winds up doing a bit of careful violence. Considering Morley's corpulence and often officious roles he usually played, it was a pleasure witnessing his cautious but ready steadfastness. The search for the gold and for the mastermind takes Philip Calvert through some of Scotland's mistiest, coldest-looking and rockiest sea-swept scenery, from a desolate cemetery and a desperate fight with two goons to deep under water in a scuba outfit and into the bowels of a deliberately sunken ship and another desperate fight, this time with a goon in a diving suit. There's even a flaming helicopter crash into the cold, murky loch waters. Calvert eventually puzzles out the murderous scheme, but not before there are plot twists, turns and roundabouts. Along the way, Calvert deals out death by shooting and knifing, by throwing overboard, by neck cracking, by underwater acetylene torch and even by crossbow. Calvert is not a man to find yourself between him and his objective. When Eight Bells Toll isn't a great adventure thriller, but within its own limits it's entertaining. Those limits are the same as in most of the many other adventure thrillers by Maclean...headlong plots that don't stop for anything, regular intervals of vivid violence and escapes, unexpected betrayals, loose ends that stay loose, a certain level of confusion about what exactly is happening, minimal significant female involvement and no sex. He wrote the screenplay for this one and often worked on the screenplays for the movies made from his books. Think Ice Station Zebra, The Guns of Navarone, Where Eagles Dare and quite a few others. Personally, I still like his first, HMS Ulysses, published in 1955. He cranked out nearly a book a year until he died in 1987. The last 20 or so, in my opinion, were little more than recycled quickies, predictable and uninteresting. The one disquieting and poignant note is watching Jack Hawkins, a first-rate actor, as Sir Anthony Skouras. Hawkins was a beefy man with a distinctive, raspy voice. He smoked 60 cigarettes a day at one time. In 1965 surgeons removed his larynx because of cancer. He no longer could speak. Hawkins continued to act until his death in 1973. Charles Gray, a character actor and friend of Hawkins, usually dubbed his voice. Gray provides Hawkins' voice in When Eight Bells Toll.

bob the moo In order to investigate a missing ship, Officer Philip Calvert is employed by intelligence head "Uncle Arthur" and equipped with a small team including intelligence officer Hunslett. Finding the ship once turns out to be easy off the coast of Scotland but comes at a price – the lives of two of his team. Finding the ship again is the first step but soon Calvert has uncovered a bigger scheme involving the disappearance of many other smaller boats.As a teenager I read Where Eagles Dare and, from there, got quickly into other Alistair McLean books and still would tend to enjoy them now. Most of his films though, are a different matter and it is often the case that they are average at best. So it is with this film that fails to really engage with a plot that aims for mystery by not revealing detail but just ends up being all a bit boring, slightly confusing and ultimately not worth watching. The story begins with a tense opening and then jumps back to provide a bit more set up but it keeps its cards close to its chest and, as a result, there is no real hook to grab the audience with. The character development is poor; Calvert is a cardboard cut out and the film really suffers from the lack of a bad guy with any sort of screen presence because there isn't any tension built up other than in the odd scene. Of course this is partly the fault of the very flat direction and production, which helpfully inserts very loud "Dah-Dah" music into any scene where we are meant to be excited.The cast can do nothing to improve things, so few of them actually bother. Hopkins is interesting because I'm not used to seeing him so young, but other than that he pretty much goes through the motions and never convinced me as the sort of person I think his character was meant to be. Morley is at least quite funny in his role and is a welcome injection into the film; he may not help build tension but he at least provides a bit of life or animation into things. Meanwhile Hawkins and Bond are pointless and Delon is too blonde and obvious.Overall, very much in the mould of the majority of McLean films in that it is weak, lacking the punch tension of his books and pretty dull. The plot is totally unengaging and the characters do all they can to prevent you giving a toss about them or their story. Even when the whole plot becomes clear, you'll be too busy wondering why you bothered sticking with it that far anyway.

L. Denis Brown During the period since long distance travel became much more widespread in the 1950's, paperback thriller novels have become an increasingly important part of newly published friction. Before any long journey, we go into the bookstall in the airport, railway station or bus station from which we are departing and choose a paperback to keep us occupied during our journey. In many cases the choice is a thriller which is discarded on our return home. But before this how often have we seen a page at the end saying something like "Now to become a major motion picture starring.........." The coupling of paperback and movie versions of new thrillers has become increasingly important during recent decades. Over the years old writers have retired and new writers have built big reputations, but the process is ongoing. As soon as a successful new thriller appears in the bookstalls, movie studios compete to buy up the film rights. Not all the books for which film rights have been purchased actually finish up as movies but many of them do; so we now have movies, readily available for home viewing, which are based on novels from such highly respected writers of thrillers as Hammond Innes, Alistair MacLean, Tom Clancy and many others. In total these constitute a significant portion of the new movies that are now released each year. Alistair MacLean is credited by IMDb with 17 novels which have been filmed for either the cinema or television. It is reported that he was unhappy with the screenplay written for the earlier movies made from his novels and insisted on participating in writing the screenplay for all the later ones. "When Eight Bells Toll" was one of the movies for which he receives credits as both the author of the book and the writer of the screenplay. It is very interesting to find that several IMDb users have still been sharply critical of this film on the basis that much of it is too slow and spends too long in character development, leaving the action sequences too short and too far apart for the viewers interest to be fully maintained. In general I am not an enthusiast for movies made from thriller novels, which are usually a hybrid of who-dun-it and action sequences - the latter generally seem to involve gun battles or more basic hand to hand combats that are usually unpleasantly noisy, digitally enhanced to the point where they appear highly improbable, and far too lengthy in duration. I find that the prominence given to the shoot-out action sequences in such movies usually means that there is no time for gradually revealing the complexities of character that made the original novel interesting. In contrast to most of the other IMDb users who have commented on this film, this would be my chief criticism of "When Eight Bells Toll"; so my comments, or rating, would appear to be of little value to readers who have a different appreciation for this type of film. For me the most enjoyable parts of this film were the splendid photography of the Scottish west coast scenery, and some evocative sequences involving small craft handling which brought back many memories. Somehow the story never clicked although this film has a great cast and some very taut dialogue. I particularly enjoyed the interplay of character between Anthony Hopkins playing a very dour investigator, Corin Redgrave playing his sidekick, and Robert Morley who gives a great performance as their superior officer. Aided by its sharp, realistic and down to earth dialogue, most of the film was quite readily believable but unfortunately I did not find the final shootout in a concealed rocky inlet very convincing. As a film I would rate it somewhere in the middle of the scale, as a reasonably competent pot-boiler but no more. I am a great fan of Alastair MacLean's novels, but will not be rushing out to buy a videotape or DVD of any of the others that I have read, even if he was responsible for the screenplay himself.