111 A Dandy in Aspic

[MichaelB]

A DANDY IN ASPIC
(Anthony Mann, 1968)
Release date: 18 March 2019
Limited Blu-ray Edition (UK Blu-ray premiere)

Pre-order here

The final film by the great Anthony Mann (Winchester '73, El Cid), A Dandy in Aspic is a stylish and complex cold-war thriller starring Laurence Harvey (Room at the Top, The Manchurian Candidate) as a Russian double-agent working for British Intelligence who is assigned to track down and kill an unusual target.

Falling between the outlandish exploits of James Bond and the dour realism of John le Carré’s ‘circus of spies’, this paranoid thriller is a dark and refined affair, with a superb supporting cast headed by Mia Farrow (Rosemary’s Baby, See No Evil) and Tom Courtenay (The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner, Otley), wonderful cinematography by regular Powell and Pressburger cameraman Christopher Challis, and with a terrific score by Quincy Jones.


INDICATOR LIMITED BLU-RAY EDITION SPECIAL FEATURES:
• High Definition remaster
• Original mono audio
• Audio commentary with author and critic Samm Deighan
• BFI Seminar with Anthony Mann (1978): an archival audio recording of the great director
• The BEHP Interview with Christopher Challis (1988): an archival audio recording, made as part of the British Entertainment History Project, featuring the renowned cinematographer in conversation with Kevin Gough-Yates
• Berlin: The Swinging City (1968): original promotional film
• Interview with titles designer Michael Graham-Smith (2019)
• Richard Combs on ‘A Dandy in Aspic’(2019): a new appreciation by the renowned critic, lecturer and broadcaster
• Theatrical trailer
• Image gallery: on-set and promotional photography
• New and improved English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Limited edition exclusive booklet with a new essay by Ian Penman, an overview of contemporary critical responses, and film credits
• World premiere on Blu-ray
• Limited Edition of 3,000 copies
• All extras subject to change


#PHILTD111
BBFC cert: 12
REGION FREE
EAN: 5037899071670

[KJones77]

Very intrigued by this one. Anyone have any thoughts on it?

[alacal2]

"And the new excitement of Mia Farrow"!!

[domino harvey]

Very intrigued by this one. Anyone have any thoughts on it?

It's of a piece with all the other international spy movies of the era. I'd rank it somewhere in the middle of those, and pretty far down for Mann. Not a high note to go out on, at least

[Drucker]

Based on Dom's comment it almost sounds like a pass, and then you see the Mann interview as an extra and welp.

[domino harvey]

While on a lot of movies, Indicator releases or otherwise, I'm not always in lockstep with the overall consensus, on this one I may actually be more charitable than most

[knives]

I actually love it a lot, but I also enjoy well above the average the weird spy films or the era like this and Preminger's Rosebud.

[Cold Bishop]

I like it, and do think it could have been possibly a very good film had Mann finished it. Granted, I love the po-faced wave of unglamorous spy films (I think Kremlin Letter is a masterpiece).

[MichaelB]

Final specs:

[Dr Amicus]

Has my eyesight failed me or is the BFI Seminar no longer present? The lengthy Challis interview sounds interesting, but the Mann seminar looked like the icing on the cake...

[MichaelB]

Mondo Digital.

[therewillbeblus]

I thought this was solid. Not necessarily an outlier or standout amongst the late 60s half-serious spy films, but better than the norm. There are some well-conceived stylistic exhibitions that gave me a kick, and the plot moves through enough acts of shifting power dynamics to keep this airborne. Plus it was amusing to see Tom Courtenay play a dour antisocial personality type. I didn't detect obvious traces of Mann's fingerprints though this could be cleared up in the extras I haven't explored, or could simply be a product of Mann's range in eclecticism or forfeit of auteurist charge in the last stage of his career, and is by no means a complaint just an observation. Another pleasant release from Indicator, and one that should warrant repeat viewings compared to their other spy releases of the era for me, excusing Charley Varrick that is.