Rent When Eight Bells Toll (1971)

When 8 Bells Toll - When Eight Bells Toll review by AW

I really thought this film was late 70s, say '77 thru '80 but was surprised to find it was 1971. The fashions, hairstyles, and technology were not as obvious. People too often state films are "dated" but the term really doesn't apply...if you watch ones of 30, 40 or 50 years ago (52 in this case!) they are simply of a period.

I was sure I'd seen it before but wanted to revisit it after reading the book I got free from a railway station help-yourself bookshelf. The story is by Alistair MacLean who incidentally wrote the screenplay. Often authors aren't really up to translating their adventurous stories to the big screen but AM nails it here. There's plenty of action, suspense, intrigue & skullduggery, with helicopters, boats, grappling hooks, underwater photography, and plenty of chilly seawater and ragged rocks on the wild west coast of Scotland. AM wrote a number of cracking stories that got filmed, including Ice Station Zebra, Where Eagles Dare, Fear Is The Key, etc. Unfortunately AM's nearest rival Desmond Bagley, my all-time favourite author sadly suffered worse with filmings of his own stories, they just never seemed to match up.

Anthony Hopkins leads the cast as navy diver and secret agent Philip Calvert who's on a quest to find the gang who's been hijacking gold bullion from ships. I didn't recognise Corin Redgrave as his intelligence officer cohort Hunslett on the Firecrest, but the film is full of more of the top actors of the period - Robert Morley, Jack Hawkins, Ferdy Mayne, Maurice Roeves... and Natalie Delon, Alain's former wife, speaking very good English and providing female diversion and potential love interest.

Worth a watch with some good chuckles off lines by Morley as 'Uncle Arthur' or 'Annabel'.

A good old fashioned adventure story - When Eight Bells Toll review by Maureen

Alastier MacLean writes very good adventure stories and the filmmakers did not let him down. The cast included some of our best known and really first - rate actors of the period and the whole film, even though it was made many years ago, was thoroughly enjoyable. Some films seem very dated, not so this one. As the story is based on a criminal conspiracy to steal gold bullion, there were some killings, but no gratuitous violence. The story was believable.

George Roby.