A Dandy in Aspic (1968)

It was somewhat of a feature of the late 1960s to make bleak and world weary spy movies. This film is in this mould. I saw the film upon it's release and quite enjoyed it, albeit it is slow and a little dull. Still, I think that it is an interesting piece of film making and enjoyed the performances of Laurence Harvey and Tom Courtenay who play British agents who do not like each other. (Harvey is in fact a double agent). There are some good locations shots of 1960's London (mainly bleak) and Berlin (not so bleak). Harvey trudges around both capitals after been given an assignment to kill a Russian Spy - who is in fact himself. Mia Farrow is a trendy young thing (tho' a bit on the thin side)and adds love interest. However, as she keeps turning up wherever Harvey goes, is she as innocent as she appears? A young Peter Cook also stars as a rather irritating junior British agent. John Bird and Lionel Stander add a little humour into an otherwise humourless film. Definitely worth a look.

This is the last movie by a man who gave some of the best westerns ever made.After "Cimarron" (1960) ,he went to make epics ,the first of which ("El Cid" ) stands as his most sustained work in the sixties."A dandy in aspic" ,which was finished by his star,looks like a cross between "the Manchourian candidate " (which Laurence Harvey's presence reinforces) and "the spy who came in from the cold" ,with a dash of Jorge Luis Borges thrown in for good measure It's not as bad as its reputation.First the dance of the puppet ,during the cast and credits ,is worthy of Saul Bass (the puppet comes back at the end).Then the movie,entirely filmed on location,takes us to the wharfs of London and to Berlin at the time of the Wall.Like many works of the era ,it deals with cold war and is not worse than most of them.Nothing from James Bond,except maybe the scene with Harvey's secretary ,but it's not Moneypenny.A threatening world where men are only pawns in a game,or puppets in the hands of a string man we never see .The best moment is probably the automatic photo booth ,a scene which has been imitated since.SPOILER Unfortunately ,the part of Caroline (Mia Farrow) gets in the way.As soon as he's in Berlin,Eberlin meets her and we may think that the character bears some relation with the plot.But her presence is purely decorative and as Tom Courtenay says :"You've got no past and he's got no future" .

Dour spy film full of ambiance and interesting scenes, filmed on location in London and Berlin, in color, with an interesting story about a Russian spy who has been infiltrated into the British spying agency for eighteen years and wants to go back home. The twist is that he's done such a good job for the Russians, that the British want him killed. The added twist is that we're led to believe that they (the British) don't know about him (his true identity), and send him to Berlin to kill the Russian mole (himself). Who better to play the part than the intense Laurence Harvey? Combine him with Per Oscarsson as his Russian contact, the two of them both homesick and tired of the existential life of a spy, and both doomed, and you get a pretty brooding picture. Harvey's romance with Mia Farrow doesn't add much, but attempts to put him in some kind of human warmth out of the cold and danger of the spy world. If the film is pretentious, it's because of the Cold War world of espionage that it seeks to portray, Sartre existentialism with touches of Kafka, as well as swinging 60's jet set James Bond scenes, such as a great scene at the German Grand Prix, featuring Tom Courtenay with a rifle disguised as a cane, and the sophisticated and elegant opening theme written by Quincy Jones.

It's difficult to watch the cold war thriller A DANDY IN ASPIC and not scratch your head wondering what is going on. Laurence Harvey is a double agent chosen by British intelligence to track down a double agent who is working for the Russians. The double agent turns out to be himself...and we know that early on so you spend the rest of the movie wondering who's who and what side are they on. Nevertheless, the game of cat-and-mouse played between Harvey and nasty British spy Tom Courtney (a great actor) is fun. A DANDY IN ASPIC is not a bad movie, it just that the plot is thicker than Laurence Harvey's out of control pompadour. Mia Farrow is a swinging London photographer who gets involved with Harvey and Lionel Stander plays a witty Russian mole.