Film / When Eight Bells Toll

When Eight Bells Toll is 1966 a spy/detective thriller by Alistair Maclean, which was adapted into a 1971 film directed by Étienne Périer and starring Anthony Hopkins with Robert Morley, Nathalie Delon and Jack Hawkins.

In the Irish Sea, cargo ships are being hijacked and robbed of their cargos of gold bullion. Phillip Calvert (Hopkins) is a British secret agent who's sent to the Scottish island of Torbay to hunt down the culprits.

---

The novel and movie have the following tropes:

• Actionized Adaptation: The novel has a Mexican Standoff and Just Between You and Me, with the pirates surrendering once the Royal Marine Commandos arrive to back up the heroes. The movie however has a momentary standoff followed by a shootout when Calvert provides a distraction.
• Brains and Brawn: Hunslett (British Intelligence) regards his pairing with Calvert (Royal Navy) as this. The weakness of this trope is shown when Hunslett is murdered while Calvert is away.
• Concealment Equals Cover: Captain Irvine, standing behind a wooden balcony, is riddled with bullets fired by Calvert's Sterling, while Calvert is crouched behind an upturned wooden boat yet is completely unharmed by bullets from assault rifles and submachine guns.
• Cover Identity Anomaly: The customs officers claim to have spent all day searching ships for stolen goods, yet Calvert notes that their clothes are clean. Neither are any of them carrying a portable photocopier, despite ostensibly taking the ship's papers to be copied.
• Cement Shoes: Calvert shocks Uncle Arthur by necksnapping a mook, wrapping his legs in chain and throwing the corpse overboard. Later they're pulling up the anchor and find Hunslett has been tied to it.
• Clothing-Concealed Injury: Calvert and Hunslett find their radio sabotaged, but there's blood on it. Calvert suspects one of the fake customs officers was the same man whose hand he sliced open the previous night, and was wearing gloves to hide it (which he had to take off to fiddle with the radio). He also had a hat to cover his Bald of Evil.
• Dating Catwoman: Even though Charlotte is revealed to be The Mole, Calvert lets her escape with a bar of gold. Though Charlotte doesn't think much of her chances without Calvert, he says that it's at least a chance.
• Every Car Is a Pinto: In this movie, every motorboat is. One explodes with a shot from Calvert's revolver, another after striking a glancing blow on a tunnel.
• Good Is Not Nice: In revenge for Hunslett's death, Calvert rams a pirate boat and shoots the crew while they're helpless in the water.
• Grappling-Hook Pistol: A realistic version when Calvert uses a line thrower to climb the cliff to the castle, with the line playing out from a large container at his feet rather than being attached to the launcher.
• Harpoon Gun: The Big Bad gets shot in the back with one as he's fleeing in a motorboat (which then explodes).
• Horny Sailors: Noting the eagerness with which Calvert is snogging her, Charlotte quips that he's clearly been a long time at sea.
• How We Got Here: The movie starts with Calvert boarding a ship and finding two dead men. We then flashback to Calvert and Hunslett briefing Sir Arthur on the idea of planting a couple of intelligence agents on the next bullion shipment. Sir Arthur insists he has two operatives who can take care of themselves. In walk the two men that Calvert later finds dead.
• It's What I Do
  Charlotte: All you're worried about is your job, and you do it right. And that's all you do. You're just a professional bastard.
  Calvert: In the words of a late friend of mine—it's what I do well.
• I Have Your Wife: The pirates are forcing others to assist in their crimes by holding their relatives in the castle dungeon.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Lampshaded when Calvert climbs a cliff to a castle to rescue the Damsel in Distress within. He's more like a Knight in Sour Armor.
• Make It Look Like a Struggle: Charlotte has fresh scars on her back when she swims out to Calvert's boat, claiming that she's escaping from an abusive husband. Her husband is actually the leader of the pirate gang, and sent her to tip them off using a radio hidden in her perfume bottle.
• Men of Sherwood: Calvert recruits local shark fishermen to help him in Storming the Castle. When Uncle Arthur congratulates them on their public spiritedness, they explain that Calvert has promised them a cut of the insurance reward.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Just listen to the Bond-type music as our hero climbs an anchor chain.
• Never Trust a Trailer: While there's plenty of action in the movie the poster exaggerates it somewhat—the castle doesn't explode, there are no gunfights involving a pretty Action Girl and the hero hanging from a helicopter rope ladder, and it's more espionage thriller than Navarone-type war movie.
• Odd Couple: Much humor is derived from the Snark-to-Snark Combat between the impertinent Calvert and the pompous head of British Intelligence, Sir Arthur Arnford-Jones ("Uncle Arthur").
• Of Corpse He's Alive: At the start of the movie and novel, Calvert sneaks onto a ship and breaks into the radio room, only to be caught red-handed by a sailor pointing a revolver at him. He then notices the revolver is propped on the desk and the man's eyes aren't moving to follow him. On further examination the sailor has been stabbed in the back with a knife that's holding him in position.
• The Radio Dies First: Fake custom officers board the boat for an inspection and sabotage the radio. Fortunately there's a second hidden radio with scrambler. In the novel the villains find where this radio is hidden, steal it and leave Hunslett's body there.
• Ruthless Modern Pirates: The pirates hijack ships, dump the crews on a lonely part of the Irish coast, then sink them near their base of operations to Hide the Evidence so they can retrieve the gold with divers at their leisure. They also kidnap the relatives and loved ones of local people they want to coerce into aiding them.
• Short-Lived Aerial Escape: A helicopter drops Calvert off on the island, but the pirates are waiting in ambush with assault rifles. As the helicopter flies off Calvert leaps onto it and is able to clamber inside, but another burst of fire kills the pilot and causes it to crash.
• Show Some Leg:
  • When Calvert tells Lord Kirkside's daughter to distract the guard, she points out a problem with this trope.
    Sue: What if he doesn't fancy me?
    Calvert: Well, that's all we need—a guard that's queer!
  • This was not an issue in the novel, because that particular guard fancied himself a ladies' man and had already tried to seduce the woman concerned.
• Stab the Scorpion: After her treachery is revealed, Charlotte cringes as Calvert grabs a deer's head mounted on the wall and rushes her, but the antlers just harmlessly impact the wall on either side of her.
• Storming the Castle: Or in this case, storming the tunnel dock beneath the castle.
• Tae Kwon Door: A mook peeks through a deck hatch only to have Uncle Arthur slide it shut on his head, knocking him unconscious.
• Traitor Shot: The way Charlotte is listening in on Calvert and Uncle Arthur clues in the audience early that she's a Fake Defector.
• Trapped in a Sinking Car: After being shot up by pirates, the helicopter crashes at the base of a sea cliff, Teetering on the Edge as Calvert struggles to escape from the burning cabin. Then it topples into the sea which extinguishes the fire but traps Calvert underwater, with the pirates waiting above in a motorboat to see if anyone surfaces. He uses the pilot's oxygen bottle and mask to keep breathing until they leave.
• Trespassing to Talk: Calvert returns to his boat and finds himself tussling with someone in the dark. On turning on the light switch, he finds he's holding a gun to the head of his own boss.
• Wall of Weapons: Calvert takes a crossbow off a wall of medieval weapons and uses it to shoot a guard and take his rifle. Given that the pirates are holding several people hostage in the castle, including the owner, one wonders why the pirates didn't secure these weapons in case their captives tried to use them. Or why Calvert didn't just bring a silenced firearm with him.
• When the Clock Strikes Twelve: The title refers to midnight (eight bells, according to the nautical method of keeping time) when Calvert has arranged for the local shark hunters he's recruited to ram the dock gates with their boat.

---