A Dandy in Aspic
Encyclopedia
A Dandy in Aspic is a 1968 British spy film
Spy film
The spy film genre deals with the subject of fictional espionage, either in a realistic way or as a basis for fantasy . Many novels in the spy fiction genre have been adapted as films, including works by John Buchan, John Le Carré, Ian Fleming and Len Deighton...

, directed by Anthony Mann
Anthony Mann
Anthony Mann was an American actor and film director, most notably of film noirs and Westerns. As a director, he often collaborated with the cinematographer John Alton and with James Stewart in his Westerns.-Biography:...

, based on the novel of the same name by Derek Marlowe
Derek Marlowe
Derek William Mario Marlowe was an English playwright, novelist, and screenwriter.- Life :Derek Marlowe was born in Perivale, Middlesex, and lived there and in Greenford as a child. His father was Frederick William Marlowe and his mother Helene Alexandroupolos...

 and starring Laurence Harvey
Laurence Harvey
Laurence Harvey was a Lithuanian-born actor who achieved fame in British and American films.- Early life :Harvey maintained throughout his life that his birth name was Laruschka Mischa Skikne. However, his legal name was Zvi Mosheh Skikne. He was the youngest of three boys born to Ber "Boris" and...

, Tom Courtenay
Tom Courtenay
Sir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , Billy Liar , and Dr. Zhivago . Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre...

 and Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...

.

Essentially a Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

 thriller, it is the story of a Russian counter-espionage agent, known as Eberlin (Laurence Harvey
Laurence Harvey
Laurence Harvey was a Lithuanian-born actor who achieved fame in British and American films.- Early life :Harvey maintained throughout his life that his birth name was Laruschka Mischa Skikne. However, his legal name was Zvi Mosheh Skikne. He was the youngest of three boys born to Ber "Boris" and...

) to his employers in British Intelligence, where he is working undercover for Moscow as a double agent
Double agent
A double agent, commonly abbreviated referral of double secret agent, is a counterintelligence term used to designate an employee of a secret service or organization, whose primary aim is to spy on the target organization, but who in fact is a member of that same target organization oneself. They...

.

Plot

Eberlin's superiors in Britain instruct him to find and assassinate a KGB agent named Krasnevin, believed to have killed a number of British agents. This presents a problem for Eberlin, as he is Krasnevin. He is summoned to a meeting at a country house, where he is presented with a photograph of the suspected Krasnevin. It turns out to be his handler and go-between with Moscow.

He is partnered with a ruthless, cynical and sociopathic
Psychopathy
Psychopathy is a mental disorder characterized primarily by a lack of empathy and remorse, shallow emotions, egocentricity, and deceptiveness. Psychopaths are highly prone to antisocial behavior and abusive treatment of others, and are very disproportionately responsible for violent crime...

 British agent Gatiss (Tom Courtenay
Tom Courtenay
Sir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , Billy Liar , and Dr. Zhivago . Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre...

), who openly distrusts and dislikes Eberlin. Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow
Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...

 plays a London-based photographer with whom Eberlin has an affair. Much of the film takes place in West Berlin
West Berlin
West Berlin was a political exclave that existed between 1949 and 1990. It comprised the western regions of Berlin, which were bordered by East Berlin and parts of East Germany. West Berlin consisted of the American, British, and French occupation sectors, which had been established in 1945...

, where Eberlin tackles the dilemma posed by his mission by attempting to escape across the Berlin Wall
Berlin Wall
The Berlin Wall was a barrier constructed by the German Democratic Republic starting on 13 August 1961, that completely cut off West Berlin from surrounding East Germany and from East Berlin...

 to the East. His attempts are frustrated by his partnership with Gatiss, and by the Soviet authorities, who are keen retain one of their top agents in British intelligence.

Cast

  • Laurence Harvey
    Laurence Harvey
    Laurence Harvey was a Lithuanian-born actor who achieved fame in British and American films.- Early life :Harvey maintained throughout his life that his birth name was Laruschka Mischa Skikne. However, his legal name was Zvi Mosheh Skikne. He was the youngest of three boys born to Ber "Boris" and...

     as Eberlin
  • Tom Courtenay
    Tom Courtenay
    Sir Thomas Daniel "Tom" Courtenay is an English actor who came to prominence in the early 1960s with a succession of films including The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner , Billy Liar , and Dr. Zhivago . Since the mid-1960s he has been known primarily for his work in the theatre...

     as Gatiss
  • Mia Farrow
    Mia Farrow
    Mia Farrow is an American actress, singer, humanitarian, and fashion model.Farrow first gained wide acclaim for her role as Allison Mackenzie in the soap opera Peyton Place, and for her subsequent short-lived marriage to Frank Sinatra...

     as Caroline
  • Harry Andrews
    Harry Andrews
    Harry Fleetwood Andrews, CBE was an English film actor known for his frequent portrayals of tough military officers. His performance as Sergeant Major Wilson in The Hill alongside Sean Connery earned Andrews the 1965 National Board of Review Award for Best Supporting Actor and a nomination for the...

     as Fraser
  • Peter Cook
    Peter Cook
    Peter Edward Cook was an English satirist, writer and comedian. An extremely influential figure in modern British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. He has been described by Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath," although Cook's...

     as Prentiss
  • Lionel Stander
    Lionel Stander
    Lionel Jay Stander was an American actor in films, radio, theater and television.-Early life and career:Lionel Stander was born in The Bronx, New York, to Russian Jewish immigrants, the first of three children...

     as Sobakevich
  • Per Oscarsson
    Per Oscarsson
    - External links :...

     as Pavel
  • Barbara Murray
    Barbara Murray
    Barbara Ann Murray is an English actress. She was married to the actor John Justin and had three daughters, but they divorced in 1964....

     as Miss Vogler
  • John Bird
    John Bird (actor)
    John Bird is an English satirist, actor and comedian.-Early life:Born in Bulwell, Nottingham, England, and educated at High Pavement Grammar School, Nottingham, Bird briefly joined the Socialist Party of Great Britain, while still at school...

     as Henderson
  • Norman Bird
    Norman Bird
    Norman Bird was a British character actor. Often sporting a moustache and an air of worried resignation, he seemed to specialise in downtrodden roles...

     as Copperfield
  • Geoffrey Bayldon
    Geoffrey Bayldon
    Geoffrey Bayldon is a British actor. After playing roles in many dramas including Shakespeare, he became known for portraying the title role of the children's series Catweazle , after turning down the opportunity to play both the First and Second Doctors in the long-running BBC science fiction...

     as Lake
  • Calvin Lockhart
    Calvin Lockhart
    Calvin Lockhart was a Bahamian-American actor on stage and in film. He was best known for the role of a big time gangster "Biggie Smalls" in the 1975 film Let's Do It Again, not to be confused with the deceased rapper Biggie Smalls...

     as Brogue
  • James Cossins
    James Cossins
    James Cossins was an English character actor. Born in Beckenham, Kent, he became widely recognised as the abrupt, bewildered Mr. Walt in the Fawlty Towers episode "The Hotel Inspectors"...

     as Heston-Stevas
  • Michael Trubshawe
    Michael Trubshawe
    Michael Trubshawe was a British actor and former officer in the Highland Regiment of the British Army. Trubshawe was very close friends with the famous British actor David Niven, serving as best man for both Niven's weddings, and is constantly referred to in Niven's memoirs The Moon's a Balloon,...

     as Flowers
  • Geoffrey Lumsden
    Geoffrey Lumsden
    Geoffrey Lumsden was a British character actor who had a lengthy career on television.By some way his best known role was Captain Square in Dad's Army, the pompous commander of the Eastgate platoon of the Home Guard who was a rival of Captain Mainwaring.He appeared in a few episodes, though...

     as Ridley
  • Elspeth March
    Elspeth March
    -Early years:She was born as Jean Elspeth Mackenzie in Kensington, London, England, the daughter of Harry Malcolm and Elfreda Mackenzie.-Career & marriage:...

     as Lady Hetherington
  • Richard O'Sullivan as Nevil
  • Mike Pratt as Greff
  • George Murcell
    George Murcell
    George Murcell was a British character actor. His first wife was Josephine Tweedy whom he married in 1953, and his second was the actress Elvi Hale whom he was married to from 1960 until his death....

     as Sergeant Harris
  • Vernon Dobtcheff
    Vernon Dobtcheff
    Vernon Dobtcheff is a French and British actor.Dobtcheff was born in Nîmes, France, to a family of Russian descent. He attended Ascham Preparatory School in Eastbourne, Sussex, England, in the 1940s, where he won the Acting Cup...

     as Stein

Production

Largely filmed on location in London and Berlin, this was Anthony Mann's final film; he died before it was finished and actor Laurence Harvey completed the film.

The film also features Peter Cook
Peter Cook
Peter Edward Cook was an English satirist, writer and comedian. An extremely influential figure in modern British comedy, he is regarded as the leading light of the British satire boom of the 1960s. He has been described by Stephen Fry as "the funniest man who ever drew breath," although Cook's...

, at a time when his TV career was at a peak, in a minor role as the foppish but libidinous British agent, Prentiss.
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