The Spy with a Cold Nose

It made me laugh a little, which hasn't happened to me in a long time. When the boss sees Stanley Farquhar(Lionel Jeffries) without a hand and says "I'm sorry!", Farquhar replies, "I left it in the office." Then I laughed again when Francis Trevelyan (Laurence Harvey) told one of his mistresses, a married woman, to buy more dogs, to have more reasons to meet. There is also a lovely scene with the "comrade princess" Natasha Romanova(the gorgeous Daliah Lavi who left us in 2017) in the Kremlin. OK, I won't tell you the whole movie, how many others do, it's great fun, watch it, I recommend it with confidence! Lionel Jeffries is very funny, the funniest of all actually, then the old secretary who's a bit deaf, a mock of Moneypenny, she is delicious and the music of the Italian Riz Ortolani is cool, cheerful.

Either Laurence Harvey was getting desperate, or he seriously wanted to change his image; in 1966, he accepted a part in a silly comedy, The Spy with a Cold Nose. Two rules of thumb for actors: never work with animals or children. And in this movie, Larry plays second fiddle to a dog. (Actually, he plays third fiddle to the dog and Lionel Jeffries.) But, if he just wanted to change his image and make himself more family friendly, it was a cute idea. Similar to That Darn Cat, lots of kids will enjoy this movie as they watch a cute little pet get recruited into the world of government spies. You'd never guess the soft-spoken veterinarian in this movie is the same crazed assassin from The Manchurian Candidate, unscrupulous cad in Room at the Top, or naughty playboy in Darling. In this comedy, a dog is fitted with a discreet listening device so he can spy on the Russians, and Lionel is the British agent in charge of the whole operation. He doesn't get any respect at home, so this is his shot to feel like a bigshot. When the dog gets sick and has to go see the vet, Lionel tries to re-capture the dog so they can find out what his collar has been tape-recording. It's pretty harmless if you want to try it, but it's not that great.

This is hilarious and I think one of my favourite films ever. Reasons to see it: It was written by Galton and Simpson, writers of 'Hancock' and 'Steptoe and Son', on top form.

It stars British comedy super-god Lionel Jeffries, and is his finest hour and a half (apart from directing 'The Railway Children').

It co-stars two other absolute gods of British cinema, Laurence Harvey and Eric Portman. I don't think I've seen either of them in a comedy apart from this, and I don't know why not because they're brilliant in it. Also Colin Blakely as the Russian premiere. And Denholm Elliott and Eric Sykes, both of whom I'd completely forgotten about until I re-watched it, which is a measure of how good the others are. And holding up the American end, the colonel out of Bilko, briefly.

In a nutshell, Jeffries is a downtrodden suburban family man and low-grade spy with James Bond fantasies who masterminds a cunning scheme to obtain intelligence by surgically implanting a radio transmitter in a dog presented to the Russian leader (the cold-nosed spy of the title), aided by Harvey as a high-tone society vet with a terrible secret. Perhaps it's just Jeffries' ballpark resemblance to him, but I was reminded a bit of some of S. J. Perelman's stuff, that character he created for himself of the put-upon shlub with delusions of grandeur and dreams of romance, yanked out of his golden reveries by the banal importunities of wife and kids. But of course it's also a recurring character in British comedy - similar to the ones Galton and Simpson wrote so gloriously in Hancock and Steptoe but with an added dash of irritability - that character of the neurotic, frustrated Napoleon of Suburbia - growing up everyone in Britain had a friend with a slightly scary Dad like this. Jeffries nails it here. Perhaps the funniest of the early scenes are the ones with him at home, the tetchy paterfamilias overrun by his noisy children and wife June Whitfield ('Can't you control your spawn?' he snaps).

While most of the comedy comes from the Jeffries character, as I say Laurence Harvey is a comic revelation as a suave combination of gigolo and quack and the clash between them is great. It is very British and I suspect a bit old-fashioned for some people's tastes. Connoisseurs of Groovy London films should look out for one of those gratuitous pop-music and dance scenes the American producers insisted on inserting - in this case a completely unexplained sequence of Daliah Lavi dancing energetically by herself - but the swinging 60s elements are really just superimposed on a film that for the most part harks back to an earlier era.

Anyway, I found it hysterical, and have no idea why it isn't better known. If you like this kind of thing, then this is the kind of thing you'll love.

The Russian Premier is presented with a British bulldog, who has been fitted with a transmitter (Operation Bandy Legs) by Dr. Francis Trevelyan (Laurence Harvey). The red comrade conveniently takes the dog everywhere (even the opera) and before long 200 Russian agents working in England have been captured. To plug this leak, the Ruskies put Princess (?) Natasha Romanova (Daliah Lavi) on the case. She makes mild mannered Stanley Farquhar (Lionel Jeffries) biggest dream come true: a naked lady waiting when he enters his hotel room. For reasons impossible to dispose here (it could trigger international chaos), the chip must be removed again and only Trevelyan (third best dressed man in the whole world three years running), can do it.

Although the pre-credit sequence and the order of billing would make you believe Harvey, as the ladies man veterinarian, is the lead, he only appears sporadically during the first half of the film. It is Golden Globe nominee Jeffries who carries the picture as the low key counter intelligence agent ridiculed by his wife and children. Daliah Lavi has but a few scenes scattered throughout, but does get to show off some incredible sixties outfits and underwear. Denholm Elliott is wasted as usual, and Erik Sykes plays the kind of stupid assistant who would make Peter Sellers blush.

For a spy spoof there is little action, just some people trying to lure the dog with the help of a mate. It also seems like every character has a funny but difficult to remember surname (or a silly codename). A couple of meaningless references to popular culture immediately fall flat, and the old Get Smart cone of silence (or Sound Proof Bubble as it is called here) is dragged out again for all it's worth. This does provide one amusing bit when Trevelyan loses the only thing he has going for him: the most stuck up British accent ever committed to film.

5 out of 10

Now on YT, as an adolescent I saw this on the promise of sexy t&a from previews. Now family fare and a silly premise. Its Lionel Jeffries' movie and he makes it amusing. Operation Kid Brother had fewer laughs more action and t&a.