As part of his contract to make a film, Laurence Harvey must have demanded complete autonomy over his hair style. No matter the historical setting, a character’s profession, or likely access to tonsorial tools, his hair rarely changed—kind of a black, slimmed-down pomp with an over-the-brow crest.
As Harvey typically played distracted, bored, grumpy men, the unchanging hair seemed in union with a firm, unwavering spirit. In Harvey’s best films, he seems uncomfortable with everyone and everything—and A Dandy in Aspic (1968), directed by Anthony Mann, is no exception.
This is about the shabby world of espionage—at least, that’s what we see. Its motive force is a vision of isolation, of people unable to connect, of well-educated ghouls, bereft of humanity—lost souls, crushed by broken dreams, untethered from life. It’s the kind of terrain that Laurence Harvey, as Eberlin, a Cold-War British intelligence operative, knows how to navigate.
Eberlin is partnered with Gatiss, a borderline-insane British agent, played by Tom Courtney, with just enough restraint to keep it below the level of caricature.
Mia Farrow is a photographer who has an affair with Eberlin. Her role is one that Farrow perfected in the 60s—a saucer-eyed innocent, a gamine hippy with a credit card. She suggests a kind of normality, however evanescent.
Largely filmed on location in London and Berlin, it’s the kind of film that when it’s not raining, you feel it should be. A Dandy in Aspic could be competition as one of the first, durable, neo-noirs.
Harvey was often accused of wooden acting. Ridiculous. His gimlet-eyed style got him through a roster of impressive films. No other actor could so casually flip disinterest to menace.
When released, the film received generally negative reviews. Since then, it has attained a prominent underground status for its skill in conveying the unromantic, schizoid netherworld of professional spooks. Espionage is not a wholesome career option.
It’s not an action film. And it doesn’t have much to do with politics. Here are creatures without loyalty to anything or anyone but themselves. They never sacrifice their lives; they’re just put out of their misery, believing, to the bitter end, that (as Jean-Paul Sartre wrote long ago) ‘Hell is other people’.
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