Matrixiole Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Curt Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

MrOllie 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.

dbdumonteil 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" .

moonspinner55 Laurence Harvey plays a Russian-born spy based in London who is now working for both countries as a double-agent; he's assigned by the British to kill his alter-ego, and hopes to find a target to assume his alias. Opening with a wonderful credits sequence, "A Dandy in Aspic" looks initially to be an enjoyably old-fashioned Cold War excursion with such familiar elements as CIA operatives and the KGB. Unfortunately, though screenwriter Derek Marlowe adapted his own novel, the key ingredients of such a spy-drama appear to have gone missing; the film is all talky exposition and little pay-off. Mia Farrow continually pops up unannounced as Harvey's love-interest, probably in the faint hope we'll assume she's sneakily involved somehow. There are so many camera set-ups, verboten conversations, and obtuse face-offs that the overall effect is both exhausting and stultifying. Harvey took over the direction of the film after original director-producer Anthony Mann passed away unexpectedly. This must account for the funereal pacing and the cloudy character interaction, though the plot itself wasn't exactly timely--not even for 1968. Farrow (just prior to "Rosemary's Baby") adds quite a bit of gamine magic to the proceedings as an amateur photographer who appears to be following Harvey wherever he goes; it isn't much of a role, but Mia's beauty and youthful charm go a long way towards making the picture tolerable. Other assets: Quincy Jones' low-keyed score and the fine cinematography by Christopher Challis and Austin Dempster. ** from ****

dphelan-1 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.