Nevertheless the movie, faithfully adapted by MacLean himself, is refreshingly different, intelligent, and believable. Hopkins is fine in the lead role, while the rain-soaked locations, hardly picture postcard glamorous like most spy films, make an interesting change. (In that last regard it resembles Spyfall.) The picture has a few minor problems, like the terrible musical score by Walter Scott (later known as Angela Morley) and sloppy editing, but mostly it gets high marks.

A Kino Lorber release, the Blu-ray seems to have been sublicensed from Cinema 7 and/or Hollywood Classics, and the movie is preceded by a "Restored by Pinewood" credit, billed as a 2K restoration. The original film elements must not have been kept up though, as the 1080p transfer is notably brown and generally desaturated, color-wise, and excessively grainy, like a Techniscope movie, though this was shot in Panavision. In other words, it mostly looks fine, but could have been better if the elements had been in better shape.

Anthony Hopkins plays Phillip Calvert, a British Treasury agent investigating the hijacking of cargo ships on the Irish Sea - ships that then inexplicably vanish. In flashbacks, intelligent but insolent Calvert pressures his boss, Sir Arthur Arnford-Jones (Robert Morley), to place two agents aboard the Nantesville, loaded with eight million British pounds in gold bullion, while he and another agent, intelligence man Hunslett (Corin Redgrave) track the ship's movements.

The movie opens with Calvert sneaking about the hijacked ship, where he finds the two agents murdered. Calvert barely escapes himself and the ship disappears. However, Calvert estimates the cargo must be unloaded somewhere along the Scottish Highlands coast and, posing as marine biologists, Calvert and Hunslett sail to the Isle of Torbay.

There, Calvert begins to suspect the involvement of shipping magnate Sir Anthony Skouras (Jack Hawkins, pasty-faced with throat cancer and obviously dubbed by Charles Gray), supposedly vacationing off the island with new bride Charlotte (Nathalie Delon, ex-wife of Alain) and guest Lavorski (Ferdy Mayne). Strange things are happening in and around the isle's port town, where people have died or gone missing, and where Calvert's presence is clearly unwelcome.

Hopkins impresses from the opening scene. Secretly boarding the Nantesville, he enters a room to find an unblinking man pointing a pistol at him. (The man is later revealed as one of the two agents, but the audience doesn't know this yet.) Calvert is startled, but reacts cautiously, unmovingly, studying the man only with his eyes. Slowly, Calvert shifts his body weight and realizes that the man's eyes don't follow his movements, and he realizes that the man is dead (knife in the back). Hopkins's is an atypical movie spy, neither cocky nor cynical. He's insubordinate toward his boss, a parody of the British ruling class stuffiness, but never without cause. Sir Arthur, meanwhile, gradually comes to respect Calvert and, unlike the often-perfunctory scenes with "M" (Bernard Lee) in the Bond films, Sir Arthur takes a very active role in the film's second half.

The locations, mostly on the Isle of Mull within the council area of Argyll and Bute, are striking, bleak, and the coastline appears quite treacherous. The movie features a long scene of Calvert and a helicopter pilot (Maurice Roëves) flying aboard a Westland Widgeon along coastline that's very impressive on big home theater scenes, especially a flyover above a real decaying cargo ship half-sunk against the rocks. Later in the film the helicopter crashes spectacularly, also well done.

The film falls short here and there. Bad editing that makes it plainly obvious where Hopkins is being doubled, seriously marring the otherwise good stunt work, staged by Bond veteran Bob Simmons. The aforementioned musical score sounds like something out of a cheap Euro-spy film, while at other times imitative of John Barry. Particularly bad are several musical "stings" whenever there's a plot twist, almost ruining the moment's effectiveness. Belgian director Etienne Périer had nothing in his filmography to suggest he'd be a good fit for a picture like this. It's too bad Kastner didn't hire somebody like Peter Hunt or Val Guest; either would have been better suited to the material.

Video & Audio

Filmed in Panavision, When Eight Bells Toll is on the grainy side, resembling 2-perf Techniscope more than 4-perf anamorphic. The color favors brown and is desaturated, though that doesn't hurt much, given the story's setting. It's especially noticeable during the opening titles. In short, a good transfer of less than pristine film elements. Likewise, the DTS-HD Master Audio (2.0 mono, English only with no subtitle options) is okay if a bit tinny here and there. Region A encoded. The only Extra Feature is a trailer, also in HD.

Final Thoughts

Fans of the Daniel Craig era of Bond should really give this underrated, sober and realistic spy thriller a try. It's a neat little find, virtually forgotten yet way above average. Highly Recommended.

Stuart Galbraith IV is the Kyoto-based film historian and publisher-editor of World Cinema Paradise. His new documentary and latest audio commentary, for the British Film Institute's Blu-ray of Rashomon, is now available.