Maldonne pour un espion

I loved Laurence Harvey in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. This is also a good performance. The spy stuff and his relationship with the character played by Tom Courtenay are interesting. Also interesting is the young Peter Cook in a "straight" role ( well sort of). Harvey brought such an air of sadness and despair to this kind of role ( much like his doomed brainwashed pawn in MC). I recall a scene where he is asked about his mother's death ( I believe) and he cannot remember how he felt. The life and emotion were drained out of him to create the perfect double agent. This kind of film was popular in the 60's as an antidote to James Bond and his clones. Others include THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD and THE DEADLY AFFAIR. The great Anthony Mann started this film and was replaced by Harvey when Mann died.

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.

Laurence Harvey stars as A Dandy in Aspic from 1968, also starring Mia Farrow, Tom Courtenay, and Lionel Stander. Anthony Mann initially directed but died partway through the film. Laurence Harvey took over the reins.

These spy films were all the rage in the '60s, and many the same European feel. Krasnevin (Harvey) is a KGB agent who has been living in Britain for years, with no one suspecting he was a foreign agent, turned double agent, with the name Alexander Eberlin.

After the assassinations of three British agents, Krasnevin wants to return to the Soviet Union. His superiors refuse his request. Then he is assigned a new mission and given a partner, Gatiss (Courtenay) - to find and eliminate the Soviet assassin, Krasnevin. Himself!

The Brits believe this Krasnevin is in West Berlin, so they head there. As a further complication, he keeps running into a young photographer (Farrow) who is interested in him. Is she part of a conspiracy against him? What about Gatiss, who plainly doesn't trust him?

Slow-moving film as Krasnevin tries to figure out how he will extricate himself from the situation.

The cast is good, with the actors mentioned, plus Harry Andrews, Peter Cook, and Per Oscarsson. Farrow is the epitome of the Carnaby Street look. The London locations were lively, but then the film moves to Berlin which looks depressing.

Just okay.

The 1960s, for want of a better word, "vomited" knock-off spy thrillers in the wake of the success of the James Bond films with Sean Connery. Such titles included: Daniel Mann's Our Man Flint (1965); Ralph Thomas's Deadlier Than The Male (1967); and David Miller's Hammerhead (1968), to name but a few. However, this little number, A Dandy In Aspic (1968), based on the novel by Derek Marlowe, has passed through time relatively unnoticed, despite its direction by Anthony Mann, a filmmaker renowned for his work on Westerns and Film Noir thrillers. Moreover, this film boasts quite considerable acting talent of the day. The haunting Laurence Harvey plays the protagonist secret agent, Eberlin, who is given a mission to assassinate a KGB agent, and who is repeatedly haunted by past and present moral crises, very much in the tradition of the characters of John Le Carré and Ian Fleming. The love interest of the film is Caroline (in my opinion, the fairly talentless) Mia Farrow, playing the stereotypical role of a "swinging sixties" photographer, who, rather irritatingly, gets herself caught up in the spy game.

British acting stalwart, Tom Courtenay, plays the very understated character of Gatiss, a rival British spy who distrusts Eberlin. Look out for appearances by Richard O' Sullivan, of '70s televisual fame in the comedy series, Man About The House. The audience is also treated to a few guest appearances by British satirist, Peter Cook, for once unaccompanied by his partner-in-crime, Dudley Moore. Cook plays a comical womanising spy, Prentiss, who delivers such sexist lines they would make a millennial audience wince. Discussing with Eberlin the fact that his latest sexual conquest is "Eine kleine raver", in her company, is one of them. Still, the film is, naturally, indicative of its time.

The action sequences in the film are gritty and the film has a suitably brooding atmosphere which is, ironically, sometimes offset by the rather vibrant costumes the characters wear, supplied by veteran stylist, Pierre Cardin. Furthermore, the cinematography by Christopher Challis is tactful and it is accompanied by the appropriately minimalist score by veteran Jazz musician, Quincy Jones, whose scoring work for Sidney Lumet's adaptation of the Le Carré spy thriller, The Deadly Affair (1968), I equally enjoyed. After the film's recent premiere on Blu-Ray by Powerhouse Films, I thought it was timely to unearth this nearly fifty-year-old curio. If anything, watch it for Harvey's performance alone. That is, if you can simultaneously support Farrow's frequently sickly and mopey character.

While the story is admittedly somewhat confusing, this is definitely not the disaster that Maltin et al. would have you believe it is. It's got some plot issues, and is in fact a bit baffling by the end, but these weaknesses are far outweighed by the sleek mid-60's visuals, the cool location shots of Berlin, and the whole spy-in-an-atmosphere-of-paranoia-and-dread vibe (ie., like the Prisoner). Definitely worth a rent if you're into spy movies and/or paranoia.

p.s. the ever so mod and swinging soundtrack music is by Quincy Jones!