1968 - A DANDY IN ASPIC, Anthony Mann's final film

It would be nice to say that Anthony Mann's final film would be at the least a decent ending to his great career.  Unfortunately A Dandy In Aspic is what as known as a misfire.  This confusing spy vs spy tale almost rivals Funeral In Berlin for ridiculously complex plotting. 

Anthony Harvey plays a double agent embedded in British intelligence by the Russians.  For reasons to complicated to explain or care he is ordered to find the Russian assassin who has been killing British spies and eliminate him.  Never mind that the person Harvey is hunting is actually himself and around and around we go with this very contrived plot.

 

Tom Courtney is Harvey's coworker who hates his guts, Harry Andrews as usual has the "M" part handing out orders. For reasons I can't even begin to understand Mia Farrow is Harvey's very gratuitous love interest who just kind of shows up at different very contrived times in order to sleep with him.  I have no idea why she is in this film.  Did I mention comedian Peter Cook is in it as a British spy?  A very odd piece of casting.

 

Sadly Anthony Mann died two weeks before he was scheduled to finish filming.  Harvey stepped in and completed the film.  Mann had started his career in the film noir genre but you would be hard pressed to find any noirish touches in this story.  It's difficult to know what attracted Anthony Mann to this story he may have been looking for a change of pace after directing his super epics, El Cid,  Fall of the Roman Empire and Heroes of Telemark, For whatever reason this dull espionage tale just doesn't work.

The film was written by Derek Marlowe based on his book, the running time is 107 sluggish minutes.