Word: aspic
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...camera technique, the zoom lens, with its infinite capacity for making an audience think suspense is present when none actually exists. In The Heroes of Telemark, some corny zoom technique was at least in part redeemed by controlled visual construction and a sensible linear narrative. Perhaps A Dandy In Aspic could have similarly transcended its endless zooms to close-ups of anguished eyeballs and urban details; unfortunately, director Mann died three weeks before shooting was completed and star Laurence Harvey finished the film, presumably supervising the editing. What remains is a shooting style in transition (Mann trying to change from...
Like the western, the international spy story usually falls into one of two categories: the Spoof or the Morality Play. A Dandy in Aspic offers a little of one and a lot of the other. The anti-hero has his moments of fun during a few idyllic interludes in the percales with some warm-blooded British birds; the rest of the time he is trapped in a plot as inexorable as fate...
...Aspic was almost as cursed as Eberlin. Director Anthony Mann died before it was finished and Laurence Harvey took over, maintaining the film's tense, glossy style. But the Mann-Harvey combination could not quite cope with Aspic's thin and often incoherent content. No one in the film is properly motivated; nearly everyone is unremittingly evil. For the viewer, as for Eberlin, there is no one to trust...
...most persistent bedmate, Mia Farrow is a soft sprite whose eyes are larger than her role. The stars are outshone by the supporting players, including Tom Courtenay as a psychotic British agent and Per Oscarsson as his junkie Russian counterpart, hopelessly in love with the heroin. Fortunately, they give Aspic some flavor as it moves toward a credibly tragic end, when Harvey suspects the game is up and utters the burnt-out lament: "I feel like a whore in a creaking...
Deserting the Ship. Some observers are so convinced Johnson will be beaten next year that they have already concluded he is a lame duck in aspic. "Lots of so-called friends are deserting his ship," said one politician, "the way they were deserting Harry Truman's in 1948 and 1952." Still, it would be unwise to count the President out-or even to rate him an underdog. Despite the challenge from Minnesota Democrat...