I am one of those sad individuals who lives the life of a spy in my head, so when I go out I tailor the environment I am in to my internal spy narration. I would like to point out that I am not one of those people who mumble to themselves or give an out loud commentary as I do things, and on the weekend, I felt like a villains henchman. I went out with some friends to one of those hidden exclusive bars in the city, where I drank some very nice cocktails, before we moved on to the high-rollers club of the local casino, where individual gamblers dropped thousands per turn of the cards. I watched the gamblers disinterest as they won and lost huge amounts and I did feel bad as I thought with all that money of all the good they could do, yet I admittedly was thinking that as I ate my free food whilst gulping down my free vodka and cokes. To complete the night we went to one of the “high-class” gentlemens club, where we were ushered in as VIPs as my mates mate (a huge fat drunk guy, but stinking rich) girlfriend was performing. She is a Penthouse Pet, so it warms the heart to see love not just based on looks. This was turning out to be a very different night from my normal night out.

As I looked around the club, from my high moral pedestal mind you, I equated the sad losers next to the stage as Bond fans. Eh? I hear you cry! Well the girl walking down on two legs or on all fours, is expected and has an arrogance about her, she knows she is in charge and there are no real surprises, no real emotion, and has a half decent soundtrack just like Bond. There is no emotional connection, rather she has a role to play and will get a big fat cheque at the end of the night. She has her own marketing as the issue of Penthouse where she is on the front cover is left on a few tables so that we know who she is and that it is a supposedly privilege to see her. Bond has an arrogance about him, there is no real suspense in a Bond movie, at no point do you think that he might die, rather all the lead actors are going through the motions in order to earn the big fat pay cheque whilst the producers use the movie as a vehicle to product place anything and everything. As I am scanning the room, looking like a bad undercover cop or a lost little bored boy, I am thinking of A Dandy in Aspic, on how to write the post, when one of the hostesses comes up to talk to me.

My conversation with the very nice looking 20 year old hostess was:

She: “Hi gorgeous”
Me: “Sorry, what?”
“I said “Hi gorgeous” ”
“Oh, sorry! Hi to you too, sorry I can’t hear you as I have a cold and the music is so loud” At this point my brain is screaming at me to keep it friendly, but say no to spending money as I nearly had to take out a small loan to buy a beer here.
She said something, god knows what it was so I replied
“Sorry, what was that again?”
Some more things she says but I can’t hear over the music, but was I truly making the effort to listen properly? Or was I using all my efforts trying to look non-perverted, even though I’m in a club, how to reject her requests for a drink or even worse a very expensive private dance, so I said to her “Sorry, I can’t hear you, you have a nice night” and she says “You too gorgeous, maybe see you later” before she sashes away. At this point, I’m still thinking I’m looking cool, but I’m sure I looked relieved, but my brain is telling me well done on saving some money – how would you explain having a credit card charge from here, and also I will have to tell my wife this story when I get home which when I do, she is obviously impressed in how I reject this brazen harlots approach, but this impressiveness is hidden beneath her laughing at my social awkward panic attack. I am clearly no Robert Hanssen, I won’t be saving a Miss Ohio Stripper of the Year or writing laughably bad porn like he did.

So panic attack over, my brain returns to the movie and as it does I start thinking that the Harry Palmer films are represented by the non-penthouse strippers – why are they called strippers when they have next to nothing to take off. Palmer is like these strippers, more workman like than the Pet, but still with a certain level of looks and flexibility, and like the Pet, there is a lack of emotion that connects the performance to the audience. Palmer is suave, cool, has an arrogance about him, but you know he too, like Bond, will survive.

Palmer and Bond are clearly not the ugly ducklings of the stage, and this is where A Dandy is Aspic comes in. This movie is the not so ugly girl who can only serve drinks, still good looking but not good enough to make men swoon. Rather she may have confidence issues as she knows she is third tier in an environment where looks not personality or brains is the only criteria and this is reflected in her walk. A high-level stripper has an arrogance as she prowls her territory where a drinks girls scurries about bringing drink orders to the sad men who wont give them a glance. A Dandy in Aspic is all about confidence, self mortality and how a spy works rather than someone who swans through their operational life.

The opening credits, represented by the puppet getting pulled every which way by the East and the West, who are represented by the colours of the background, gives us a stylish clue of which sort of film it will be. It will be a film of mixed loyalties and that agents are, without labouring the point, just puppets on a string and thus expendable and there to be exploited. The puppetry is further used in the end credits too, and you feel that whoever was responsible for the credits has actually made a good job of mirroring the story, rather than just sticking on opening credits which make no sense or relevance to the movie. Take a hint Bond credit producers.

The movie opens in an English countryside church where a man is being buried. A poor attendance, and those who are attending look officious and dressed in a black and you know they are there to bury a spy. A black man hurries off to use his car phone and inform London that the man has been buried. At this point, I did question whether this man is an accurate representation of the Secret Service as he would need to be pretty important to have a car-phone and what looks like a secretary in his expensive looking car. I am solely basing on this on the fact that in those days I would think MI5 and MI6 management would have been strictly male and white, with them becoming more ethically diverse in the late 70s, 80s, rather than 1968 when this film was released.

We are introduced to the main character, Alexander Eberlin, who is actually Krasnevin a KGB assassin. Eberlin is like Molotin or Colonel Maxim Maximovich Isayev, a Russian who has managed to pass himself as a local and infiltrated the local Security establishment, in this case British Intelligence. By appearing to be a “sexless” “arrogant” or easily bored with the world man, like myself in a strip club, he is conveys to the outside world to be your stiff upper-lip Englishman and thus unflappable. However inside he is tired of his false charade, cracks are starting to appear in the Russian support organisation around him and he is yearning to go home.

Eberlin is very much a man who does not know who he is, and so he sub-consciously starts the process of professional suicide by picking up a party girl, Caroline, played by Mia Farrow. During the introduction of this character we find out that she took a picture of him in Morocco, whilst he was there on an assassination mission, and he and the viewer begins to think she is a plant by the SIS in trap him into confessing that he is not who he appears to be. Caroline says she could be a model, but I was left thinking maybe as a sexless plain looking woman who looks like a little boy type of model.

Eberlin then watches a Russian agent getting killed in London, though he could have stopped it, rather he professionally lets the man escape to his death and decides he has enough of London, its climate and wants to go home. His best friend, his local controller has became a junkie, and he too needs to escape back to the Rodina. So Eberlin requests to go home, but he is rejected by his bosses. Despondently he is then tasked by the British to find out who is Krasnevin and is teamed up with Gatiss. This tasking to Eberlin sends him into an internal panic attack, but externally maintains his facade of coolness. The viewer will either like or hate how this panic attack representation is done – I liked it, as how else can you show an internal panic attack where you go red, your ears pound, you go deaf and you want to take flight but your brain shuts down, immobilizing your limbs but your face surprisingly looks the same.

Gatiss is a young man looking to make a name for himself and wanting to turn the Cold War into a full on agent war. Eberlin later wonderfully describes Gatiss as “You [Gatiss] haven’t got an ounce of understanding or emotion in your body. You died the moment you were born. And when your heart finally stops beating, it’ll be a mere formality.”

Eberlin flies to Berlin, and upon arriving tries to defect to the East, however the East Germans refuse him entry and upon his rejection he bumps into Caroline who too has just been refused entry at the same border crossing. They hook up, and it being a spy film you now take it for being granted that she is definitely working for the British. However, I wont write much more about her as she doesn’t add much to the story, she is there simply as a bit of eye-candy, it was simply a coincidence she meets Eberlin and I think Eberlin knows that the end is near, so why not indulge himself and let some feelings show.

Gatiss in Berlin is probing looking for the Krasnevin the hitman, and is getting frustrated with Eberlin for his laissez-faire attitude in trying to find him, so Gatiss turns to the only way he knows how to try and flush Krasnevin out. That is to be a hot headed nuisance, create chaos and up the ante in Berlin with deaths of the Russians and hope that the KGB tasked Krasnevin to kill him. Gatiss, to flush out Kranevin, creates a distraction at the motor racing, which effective as it was the distraction seemed to be well over the top.

I wont go much into the rest of the story, as really it is your job, based on my strong recommendation to go out and watch this film. I hate reading reviews where the reviewer takes you through each line and nuance of the movie, I don’t mind it if it is a movie which is hard to find, but for one that is readily available why should I spoil this for you? However, I though the ending made sense as it puts an end to any aberrations of the rules of an intelligence war, where targeting each others agents is not allowed.

This is a sort of film where if you want entertainment, you will be disappointed, if you want to remove your brain and have everything explained to you, you will be disappointed. Instead, if you enjoy spies real and fictional, the psychological pressures of hiding behind a mask for years and feeling everyone is out to get you, then send the kids and your partner to bed, have a good glass of red and simply enjoy this masterpiece.

Truly this is one of the greatest spy movie of all time. This movie is so good that it makes the Harry Palmer films look like your average journeyman spy films. It strips further away the glamour of spies and instead shows that they are fragile and acutely aware of their mortality.

Fantastic.