Pete Wright: I'm Pete Wright.
Andy Nelson: And I'm Andy Nelson.
Pete Wright: Welcome to the next reel. When the movie ends
Andy Nelson: Our conversation begins.
Pete Wright: A Dandy and Aspic is over. Who do you think you are, Al Capone?
Trailer: A Dandy in Aspic. A Dandy in Aspic stars Lawrence Harvey, Mia Farrow, Tom Courtney, the dandy. A double agent with orders to track down and assassinate himself. His mission is murder, his victim himself. Dandy and Aspic in Panavision and Technicolor.
Pete Wright: Dandy and Aspic, where would you like to start? I have an idea.
Andy Nelson: I think we need to start with this title, this crazy title of this movie.
Pete Wright: Why? Like, this is one of those examples of a movie title that almost immediately dates itself. Like, when do you think people would see this title and think, what the hell does that mean? The the first people who said, what the hell does that mean? I mean, I was it a year later?
Was it five years later? But very quickly in cinema history.
Andy Nelson: Well, yeah. I mean, just breaking it down. Dandies, a dandy is a man I've been reading this all from Wikipedia. A dandy is a man who places particular importance upon physical appearance and personal grooming, refined language, and leisurely hobbies. A dandy could be a self made man, both in person and persona, who emulates the aristocratic style of life regardless of his middle class origin, birth, and background, especially during
Pete Wright: the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries in Britain. Please see Yankee Doodle.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Now there's British dandyism, there's French dandyism, and there's black dandyism, all according to Wikipedia. And often, you have the types of people who become famous for being famous and celebrated celebrated based on nothing at all except for personal charm and social connections.
Pete Wright: So that's like the Golden Globes.
Andy Nelson: So that's exactly what these are. Right? And I think in the scope of our film, okay, you get Pierre Cardin to dress the star and the leading lady, and I guess that makes him a dandy. Yeah. Because he's a spy.
It's not like he is not doing anything. You know? He's actually doing quite a bit of things, killing two things. And a lot of things. So that's the dandy part.
Now aspic is a meat jelly. It's a aspic or meat jelly is a meat jelly. Just say those two words together. Like, who thought of this? Is a savory gelatin made with a meat stock or broth set in a mold to encase other ingredients.
These often include pieces of meat, seafood, vegetable, or eggs. Aspic is also sometimes referred to as an aspic jelly. In its simplest form, aspic is essentially a gelatinous version of conventional soup. Now that last part of all of this, it sounds disgusting, but at least the last part made me go, okay. If you just took soup and it just chilled and turned it to gel, I guess I can most easily picture that as something people would actually eat.
I'm not saying I'd eat it, and I'm saying, like, all of this, especially if you go with Aspect on Wikipedia and just look at all these pictures, it is revolting. Now I understand that there are people who probably still eat this. You know, kudos to you. All more power to you. It's just gross.
It just looks like cold fat full of chunks of meat and vegetables, like, stuck in it is really what it looks like.
Pete Wright: It does. And and if you look if you do a search for, like, Google images search of these things, you should because the the it it is delightfully creative what people do with their aspic molds. There is one I happen to be looking at now, which somebody made an aspic mold of SpaghettiOs. Wow. It's just you just slice yourself a slice of SpaghettiOs.
Yeah. It's it is oh my god. I I mean, it's just it's really hard. It's got, like, a a floret of hot dogs on the top of it.
Andy Nelson: I I don't even They're Vienna sausages. Vienna sausages. You see it too. Yeah.
Pete Wright: You're there.
Trailer: Got that one. Yeah.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. So so yeah. So this is a type of food called a schaudefreude, which is a French term meaning hot cold. Meaning, they prepare it hot and then serve it cold. Apparently, it came into prominence in the in America in the early twentieth century.
And by the fifties, meat aspic was a popular dinner staple as were other gelatin based dishes such as tomato aspic. Now they've started to mostly, it was meats that they would use in aspicks, but they did start doing like fruit and vegetable flavored aspects. So eventually, you could get some that looked a little more dessert ish, where it's like a fruit mold. Right? Where it just has like bananas and strawberries and peaches and stuff, and I imagine that might taste a little
Pete Wright: better than
Andy Nelson: other ones. Not still
Pete Wright: they're not using the meat fat gelatin anymore No. I don't know. For those, please.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Oh, god. I hope not.
Pete Wright: That's just jello. Right? It's pretty much just like jello.
Andy Nelson: It's like gelatin. Yeah. It's like a chilled gelatin. Yeah, that I think you that you use. Like this one that I'm looking at, it's a Prosecco fruit salad aspic.
It uses Prosecco wine, gelatin, and sugar to make the base, which actually sounds kinda tasty. Yeah. And then berries, oranges, and quince.
Pete Wright: Here's the thing. I love jelly beans. I I love jelly beans. I love the gummies. Right?
Like, all those, like, gummy candies, I love. There is no reason I should not destroy the Prosecco fruit salad aspic. I don't like the name aspic anymore because I've seen what else you do with it with, like, pig feet.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Right. What's interesting is aspic. There are three types of aspic, Pete. There is a delicate aspic, which is a very soft one.
There's a sliceable aspic, which are mostly what we're looking at the pictures of where you just cut a slice of it and eat it. And then there is actually an aspic that they make. It's it's not even the one you can eat. It's an inedible aspic that you just make for decoration. What?
And I'm just like, why are you even doing that then? Like, it's just it's extra gross. It's like, I'm gonna take this food and then preserve it so that I could, like, hang it on the wall.
Pete Wright: Oh, god. Are you oh my god. Did you see did you find the shrimp tomato aspic?
Andy Nelson: I haven't seen that
Pete Wright: one yet. Yeah. It has crab legs, like, the claws coming out, like, erupting from it, erupting out the middle of it like it's a monster coming in through the annihilation hole. Wow. This is a terrifying thing.
A terrifying thing that I'm watching right here.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I am amazed that it is so popular and that people still are being To whom so much fun to be creative doing these sorts of things. Yeah. Like, here's one. It's got the lobster tail bursting out of the middle.
Oh.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Oh god. Yeah. Like, really, if you're under 60
Andy Nelson: Why are you making acid?
Pete Wright: Why are you making this? Do you know what? There are so many other structured foods you got. Gingerbread house. Go make a gingerbread house.
Andy Nelson: I am curious, like, on food shows, is there ever saying, well, I really would love this week for your challenge. I would love you to make me a tasty aspic.
Pete Wright: What would Paul Hollywood and Prue Leaf say to an aspic bake? Oh. Oh, I've got my cakes and my biscuits, and they're going to be suspended in aspics, and then Prue and Paul just start vomiting. That's just so weird. That was when the bake off was canceled.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Right. So so anyway, that's Aspic, and that's our title, A Dandy in Aspic, because it's essentially a well dressed man stuck in a sticky situation is basically what the title means.
Pete Wright: And that that title Long story short. Is not as sexy as a dandy in Aspic. I don't know. I might see that movie as a double agent in stickiness is better than a dandy and ass pick.
Andy Nelson: Although I will say, I actually like that they went with something really weird and creative for it. Yeah. But at the same time, it just it doesn't sell the movie as like, it sells it in a way where I feel like this is gonna be like a spoof or something. Like, it just doesn't come across as something that's meant to be serious. But, I mean, again, we're not in the period in Americana when aspic was taken seriously.
Pete Wright: Yes. Was wait. Just before we before we leave aspic, do you see in your rigorous research, was aspic has has are aspic dishes known anywhere else in the world, like the non English speaking world?
Andy Nelson: Oh, sweet Jesus. Yes. It's all over the
Pete Wright: place. Seriously?
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Does it make
Pete Wright: you feel like we're the ones who are out of sync?
Andy Nelson: Well, maybe. But here's the thing. It's very popular in Croatia, Serbia, Poland, Czech Republic, Romania, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovakia, Hungary, Greece, and Ukraine. You can certainly see a part of the world that is aspic crazy. Right?
It's like kind of that that Eastern Europe. Maybe that ties into, you know, East Berlin. Who knows? Also in crazy. Belarus, Georgia, they have another thing that they do that's aspic ish during Christmas and Easter.
Yeah. And then and that's just that part of the world. It's also Korea, Nepal, and Denmark, Belgium, China, and Vietnam. They all have different types of aspects that they that is that's popular in culture. Wow.
Pete Wright: Yeah. I feel like we have just been left behind.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. In fact, here's one in China. They use pig trotters, and it's called salted pork in jelly.
Pete Wright: Oh, I don't care. Like, is pig trotters better than dandy in aspic?
Andy Nelson: A pork jelly is an aspic made from low grade cuts of pig meat, such as trotters, that contain a significant proportion of connective tissue. It just gets worse and worse.
Pete Wright: Oh, wow. What like, before you knew this was a movie, if I had introduced the concept of aspic to you and said, here's a dish called a dandy in aspic. What do you imagine it would actually be?
Andy Nelson: Well, I would say, okay. It's a dandy. So it's gonna be something that either looks like a dandelion, like yellow sorts of bursting color thing, or it's gonna be fancy looking because a dandy wearing fancy clothes. I would say, okay. So I would have said said, okay.
It sounds like something that's a little more like a dessert. Like, a dandy in aspect sounds like you're gonna get one of those, you know, Prosecco fruit aspects.
Pete Wright: That would be better than what I had in my head. I saw one with eggs in it. Yeah. And I thought, what if you just take a tray of deviled eggs and preserve them in meat jelly? That's a Dandy
Andy Nelson: and Okay.
Pete Wright: Anyway, there's a movie that shares the title Yeah. Of this incredible dish.
Andy Nelson: And we have to say, we need to blame all of this on Derek Marlowe, the author who wrote the book, A Dandy and Aspect, upon which this is based. It's his fault.
Pete Wright: Yeah. It's his fault. What
Andy Nelson: He came up with it.
Pete Wright: Good, sir. What are you thinking? Good afternoon.
Andy Nelson: Well, it was his first novel. He didn't know what good titles were and just said, that sounds great. And maybe later he realized, damn. Maybe it wasn't. This
Pete Wright: this entire course of discussion has made me so hot. Okay. So the movie then. Yes. What what did you think of the let's pretend we didn't know anything about the food.
What did you think of of the of the film?
Andy Nelson: You know, it's it's an interesting film. I I enjoyed a lot of elements of it. I enjoyed kind of it felt like they were going for that, the spy who came in from the cold Jean Lucari type of spy story. Right?
Pete Wright: Mhmm.
Andy Nelson: Like, you definitely get this sense that, okay. There's double agents, all these double crosses, and we're following our main character who is an actual Russian operative working as a British spy. And so, like, there were interesting elements in the film, and I enjoyed all of those things. I like, I enjoyed Lawrence Harvey. I I enjoyed Tom Courtney.
I enjoyed the characters. I think I feel like by the time we're kind of digging into it a little bit, I I felt like it was a little, wandering and I don't know if sloppy is the right word, but it just felt like the story wasn't as cohesive as I wanted it to be. I really struggled with everything involving Mia Farrow. I mean, she was enjoyable enough in the film as as Mia Farrow goes, but I struggled with her accent, and I struggled with the point of her character. And then we get to the end, and I'm like, okay.
I enjoyed, like, where we went with when we got to the end of the film, but I just felt like it just took a long time doing what they wanted it to do.
Pete Wright: Yeah. I'll give you the Mia Farah point. That was I I think she is she her character survives on raw performance charisma because she is pointless in the movie. I thought I think just looking at her, she's just adorable, and she bounces around. She shows up whenever you don't expect her.
And, also, she was kind of in the way of moving the plot forward.
Andy Nelson: Well, yeah, she felt like, okay. We're introducing this woman into the story because we need we need somebody in here who Lawrence Harvey's character, Eberlin, or whatever his Russian name is, Kresnevan, is gonna because she's always there. Like, she always shows up everywhere he goes to the point where it's kind of ridiculous.
Pete Wright: And and her weird bag carrying photo boyfriend Assistant. Right. Who she mostly just sends away. Yeah.
Andy Nelson: That was strange. But it's like, it's it's so pervasive with her in the film that it feels like she has to be involved in some capacity. Like, why would she be in every single place that he goes if not that she has been hired by one side or the other to be watching him in some capacity? Right. And it doesn't ever play out that way.
It just goes nowhere, and it left me going, okay. Well, then what was the point of her character? You know? Yeah. It was just odd.
Pete Wright: It it felt exactly that way to me as if they forgot to shoot some pages in the directorial handoff that it it it was I mean, you say, you know, it wasn't, what'd you say? It wasn't cohesive
Andy Nelson: Yeah.
Pete Wright: I think was your word. I I totally relate to that. I don't know if it was an issue of just changing hands. My understanding is that Anthony Mann shot 90% of it before he passed away, and Lawrence Harvey, our protagonist, took over as as director to finish the film. But a lot can happen in editing, and who knows?
Because it feels like there were pieces just straight up missing from this movie to answer some of these questions, and I I think that is problematic. I like the ideas in the movie. I like the idea of what Eberlin is going through with these dual identities and alienation and that he can never have one home because he has two lives. The whole paranoia and distrust motif, it's the cold war. Right?
The setting is just begging for not trusting anybody, and that's our primary problem. Maybe that's why Mia Farrow is such a weird MacGuffin that we just aren't supposed to trust her just because she's there. Right? Like, that's I don't know. I I think you you already mentioned a spy who came in from the cold.
Like, that that idea, this whole, like, burnout and disillusionment theme, I think, is playing well in the movie, and and everybody's bad. Like, I think that one of the interesting things about this movie is that the East and the West are both like, it's a really blurry line between who the, like, who the good guys are and the bad guys. And I think this is a movie that essentially says, you know, we're gonna follow a guy who's ostensibly, to our eyes, a bad guy. Right? He's a Russian spy, but we're gonna have to sympathize with him because he's also our protagonist.
And that's a hard line to walk. I think, you know, I couldn't help but think of the Americans as I was watching this.
Andy Nelson: The show, not just in general, the American population.
Pete Wright: No. The show. They were Russian agents planted in The United States as to spy, but they were not also spies. They were travel agents. And I think removing that layer made the Americans a better dandy in Aspic.
Right? Like, it's just the double agent double agent thing is it was interesting in a premise, and it just didn't execute as well as I wanted it to.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. It's there's an interesting story here, like you said. And I enjoy the complexity of this spy who is working for the Brits, and they say, hey, you know, there's this KGB agent, Kresnevan, who's killing off our guys. We want you to track him down and kill him, and knowing that it's his himself. It's him.
Yeah. And I think that's an interesting aspect that we have here. That's an interesting aspect that we have here. Don't you
Pete Wright: can say ever you've done it one you had one. You've used it.
Andy Nelson: And so I like that idea of this spy who is hired to kill himself, this other alter ego. I mean, it sounds so dumb when you say it that way. And, like, even the poster,
Pete Wright: a double agent ordered to kill himself. Himself.
Andy Nelson: It it it sounds so stupid when you say it that way. But, like, who's who's hired to or who's tasked with the job to kill the spy that he actually is. Like, I think that's it's a fascinating story. And I think maybe what happened with this film is there's an interesting story in that idea that makes it harder to really get into when at the same time, Kresnevan is actually he's been doing this for eighteen years, and he's just, like, really done with it and really just wants to go home. That's another aspect of his character.
I almost did it. That that maybe we didn't need. Like, maybe this story would have played better if he also wasn't completely done with the job and just ready to quit. And maybe the fact that we're also following this really mopey spy who's just like, I just wanna go home. Why won't you let me go home?
Come back to Russia. Try I'm gonna just try to get across the Eastern, over to East Berlin without any permission.
Pete Wright: Like You're right. This whole movie is based on the premise of, nuh-uh, you can't make me.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Right. He's just mopey McMoperstein. And I think that aspect of this spy story is one of the things that made it harder for me to really click with. Like, I think that that this the other assassination plot idea is interesting, and you've got Tom Courtney as the other British agent who thinks that it's him even though he's perpetually throwing other people at it, trying to say, oh, no.
No. It was really Harry or whoever. You know? And I guess that's blending these stories. You just I think that it just made it a messier story that just didn't play as well.
Or or maybe it wasn't written as well or this directed as well. It's it's so hard to say, but what we get just didn't work as well for me.
Pete Wright: I wanted I I I I never felt the intensity of threat in this movie, which is kind of diabolical in a movie where the premise is what this movie is. It should have been it should have been Hitchcock. Right? This should have been a Hitchcock. It should have had, like, North by Northwest vibes.
Right? Like, I I could have gotten behind that. This was just more or less inert. And even the final moments I I did like Courtney. I liked Courtney a lot, and and I liked that he was sort of our avatar for identity discovery.
I I thought he was I thought he was fun. But even to the very final moment, I was just I was a little bit perplexed at how we had gotten here.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Right. It does feel like a first novel. Like, this is Derek Marlowe's first novel, and, I can't remember if he had been working in the screenplay world beforehand. He had been writing some scripts and stuff around the same time.
So this book, he wrote about the same time he was also working in in screenplays. So I I think to that end, it's it does feel early in his career as somebody who's plotting this spy story that just doesn't feel like he's ready to be Jean Lucari yet. You
Pete Wright: know? Mhmm.
Andy Nelson: And I think, you know, either take it in the Hitchcock North by Northwest direction or take it in the Jean Lucari direction. Either one of those, you could have really developed a strong story. As it is, it feels like it's not quite there. It doesn't have the pieces to actually deliver.
Pete Wright: Yeah. I'm gonna go back to that maybe there were just too many layers of espionage, and and and the the team behind adapting this wasn't able to really deliver the intensity because there are so many great movies about this same concept. Right? Spy versus spy, spy getting across a border, like, that are just done with so much more energy and kind of intellect and and emotional emotion and enthusiasm and threat. And this movie was just ended up feeling more inert.
It's not a terrible movie, but it's it's not one I need to, you know, go back to.
Andy Nelson: We could probably just put this movie in Aspic.
Pete Wright: We could. And it would make a hell of a centerpiece. It's just a DVD of this movie. Did you I mean, there was and this is a missed opportunity for this movie. I don't think anybody ate aspic in this movie at all.
Andy Nelson: Right. They we never have never have anyone eating it. Not on a train.
Pete Wright: Not on a plane? Okay. So you didn't do do we know? I mean, did you happen to look at what the the book was like, what was left out of the book?
Andy Nelson: You know, the book is apparently so forgotten, perhaps also because of the title, that it doesn't even have its own Wikipedia page. Like, there's no way to unless I went and bought a copy of the book, I found it very difficult to just get solid plot breakdowns of the book. You know? So I don't know. I'm not sure how much they changed.
I do know that Derek Marlowe, when it came to the film, he ended up saying that he really didn't like what Lawrence Harvey did in the film. It just he didn't work at all for him. And he said that once he took over as director, he felt that it really kind of, fell apart after that. So, again, I don't think he directed that much, but as you said, he still was in charge of the editing and everything. And so
Pete Wright: I I didn't catch that many differences between the book and the and the movie either in what I read, except for the fact that Laurence Harvey's portrayal of Eberlin in the film is described as stiffer and less dandy like than the character in the book. They wanted the character in the book to be more, I guess, foppish somehow. That didn't come across.
Andy Nelson: Oh, that doesn't come across at all. Like, that was one thing. Like, the only thing dandyish about Lawrence Harvey in the film is that he's wearing Pierre Caudin suits. Like, he's dressed nicely, but he's dour. He just seems like a, you know, sad grump all the time who just wants to go home, and nothing about it seems like a personable guy.
Like, even when he's out at restaurants and stuff, like that first place where Mia Farrow meets him, he's pretty much an ass to every single person there. Right? Like, the the old lady that's there, like, just there's he's not nice to anybody. And so I'm like, okay. This isn't a guy who is really drawing a crowd, his own following and everything like you would see with the dandy and everything.
It's this is just not a person that you'd wanna be around. And so that's definitely something that just doesn't come across at all.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Right. And and I wonder if there are, you know, in the same respect, if if we're given purpose in the character Mia Farrow plays in the book in a way that didn't translate to film.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Right. Right. Right. So let's talk about Lawrence Harvey.
I mean, I don't think we've discussed any of his films on our podcast before. His probably most famous I mean, room at the top is a big one because I believe he got an Oscar nomination for that one. But the Manchurian candidate, and for my money, is the one that is, like, the film that I think of when I think of Lawrence Harvey.
Pete Wright: Yeah. And the he's still on Wikipedia. He looks just like Glenn Powell. Can't you see it? Like, Glenn Powell will play Lawrence Harvey.
Andy Nelson: Except he's again dour, and Glenn Powell is always smiling.
Pete Wright: Well, that's what I mean. Like, look at this picture. He's a black and white picture, and he's smiling. He looks like, actually, maybe he's an agent in the matrix. Yeah.
Anyway, I do love that Lawrence Harvey speaking of movies with great titles, it's as if it's as if they they saw a dandy in Aspect, and we're like, maybe we can maybe we can be a little bit clearer. And so we're gonna do a movie called the spy with a cold nose. Yeah. Isn't that fantastic?
Andy Nelson: But that one is designed to be a comedy. And, like, that's where you think, like, the spy with a cold nose and then the sequel, a dandy and Aspic. Like, it seems like they should be
Pete Wright: Don't you don't ever wanna put your dandy in Aspect, Andy.
Andy Nelson: Just like you don't wanna have a cold
Pete Wright: nose when you're a spy. I haven't seen very much of what he's done except for, this now and the Manchurian candidate, but I think he's great. He's good at what he does.
Andy Nelson: I really do enjoy watching him. Room at the Top is definitely one you should check out. It's a great film. And, he was in what was the other one that I was thinking of that he was in? Darling, John Schlesinger.
John Schlesinger's film, is another good one. He's just somebody I like. And it's funny because I've been thinking about him a lot lately because I just watched to complete my Tony Scott filmography. I just watched Domino. Have you seen that one?
Oh, yes. Did you know that or did you remember that Domino, the bounty hunter, is Lawrence Harvey's daughter? What? That's like a big part of that of that story.
Pete Wright: No. I didn't I didn't know that. I didn't know that.
Andy Nelson: She's Lawrence Harvey's daughter. What? Yeah. She died when he was four. No.
He died when she was four.
Pete Wright: How was she in that movie? Yeah.
Andy Nelson: He he was he died in 1973, stomach cancer. He was a big drinker and smoker. Died in '73. She was only four years old. And, yeah, she grew up to be a bounty hunter and ended up dying herself of a fentanyl overdose when, she was 35.
Right? Before the movie came out.
Pete Wright: That was who played her? Was it Keira Knightley. God. That's crazy. I did not I did not make that connection.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Well, it they you just didn't remember it because they did definitely talk about it quite a bit in the film.
Pete Wright: Yeah. But, you know, I don't like, I didn't yeah. I that's that is the that's a clear way of putting it because I wasn't thinking about Lawrence Harvey. Yeah. And I didn't put Domino on that list.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Well and it only like, both of these films happened to fall into my life within the same week. So it's just like, I was definitely much more thinking about it than I normally would go. Oh, it's that guy. Yeah.
That Manchurian Canada guy. Yeah.
Pete Wright: Why did Domino fall into your life this week?
Andy Nelson: I was just trying to finish my Tony Scott filmography.
Pete Wright: Oh, that's right. You said so. Tony Scott. Fascinating. Yeah.
Alright. Well, interesting. Go watch Domino. Might be better than this. I had a
Andy Nelson: fun time with it. Critics may not might might put them at the same level.
Pete Wright: It's a rough I mean, it's a it's a 5.9 on IMDb.
Andy Nelson: It's a it's if you're into the what he's doing with it, it's pretty fun.
Trailer: I had a fun time with it.
Pete Wright: I definitely like
Andy Nelson: it. But back to this one. So Lawrence Harvey, the thing about him is, like, I actually think that he is a good choice to play the role. Like, I think he carries himself well. I like his look in the film.
Like, he really gives me that that vibe of, like, the spy who came in from the cold sort of vibe. Like, he seems like the John Lake Carey worn down spy who's really trying to figure out how to get out of this life. Like, I enjoy him a lot in the story, but I just don't think that the script is delivering as much as it needs to to make him work completely. You know?
Pete Wright: Yeah. And and I couldn't help but feel like he's just there's another universe where he gets Bond.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Right.
Pete Wright: Right? Like, he could have pulled off Bond and been a really interesting sort of participant in that universe. And Bond in some portrayals is more of a dandy than he ever was in this movie.
Andy Nelson: Oh, %. Yeah. Absolutely. Looking at you, Roger. Which is interesting.
And I guess we should also and you kind of mentioned it already, but he did take over directing this film when Anthony Mann died, part of the way through filming. And so he did helm. It's unclear how much he actually directed to the film. I couldn't find anything that specified. I saw one thing that said Anthony Mann directed for two weeks and then died.
I saw something that said Lawrence Harvey came in and directed the last two weeks. So was it a four week shoot? Did it was it, like, 5050? Was the time mixed up, and nobody really has a clear sense? I don't know.
All we know is that Anthony Mann started directing it. Lawrence Harvey came in and finished it, and then handled it, the editing and everything.
Pete Wright: You and I are are close. I I think I could tiebreak that vote because for me, it was he, Anthony Mann shot most of the movie, and Harvey came in the last 10% of shooting and then post Yeah. Which is about two weeks.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I did I did see something that said Lawrence Harvey directed everything like in that, the car race location that we had toward the end of the film and some of Berlin, and that everything in London was, was Anthony Mann, and he did some of Berlin. So
Pete Wright: Interesting. Well and and a troublesome place for it to be. I I wanna go back to that question, though, of given that we know that the the hands that guide this movie were changed pretty dramatically toward the end of of filming, where do you see it in the film? Like, where do you see inconsistencies in the film? Where does the tone change for you?
Well, I don't
Andy Nelson: feel like I'm seeing tone changes. And, I I think that just is I mean, I know Lawrence Harvey had directed other other things, but I don't know if he's a director who I ever said has a stamp. You know? I mean, it's his directing is so limited that I just don't think that there's much to go on. Whereas Anthony Mann, I think, as a director, I mean, probably most known for his noir films like t men and, raw deal, and then also a lot of the westerns that he ended up doing.
Like, did a lot of westerns. And he became known for landscapes. Like, that was a big thing that Anthony Mann was really good at is using landscapes, in the westerns. And I think, you know, as somebody who is a big fan of location shooting, you definitely get that here. Like, we're in a lot of these locations filming Berlin and the racetrack and the airports and trains and, like, you get a sense that that was a big part of what he was bringing to the table.
And also, he's a big fan of the antihero character. And you do see that you can see his draw to Eberlin in this film is, like, this is really this character who is cynical and wants to find peace by going home but can't. And so is is you know, you can you can see that real antihero character here. And I think that's what I'm getting out of this film from Mann as a director. I don't I don't know.
Like, I guess, if anything, with the very end of the film, like, it I'm it must have been Lawrence Harvey's decision to shoot that final moment the way he did with the kind of the Gaddis running Eberlin down, you know, and then the freeze frame and everything. And I'm guessing that's kind of, like, one of the things that he maybe contributed, but I don't know. I I I don't know if I can see any specific line in there.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. I can't either. And a lot of the the sort of review material that I was reading were like, oh, stylistic inconsistency and loss of directorial vision. And, you know, there was nothing really specific about, you know, the fact that the change led to something that we'd see on screen.
And in fact, the the the the film's troubled production likely contributed to its mixed reviews. I don't think that's true. I think the the mixed reviews were because the movie is mixed. I don't think it necessarily has anything to do with the fact that the hands changed. The movie didn't hold up for me as a thriller, and that just seems like core material problems.
Andy Nelson: It does make me wonder, again, going back to our fair author, Derek Marlowe, who this was his first novel that he had written, and he then adapted the screenplay. And then he complained it sounds like he was happy with man. Maybe he also didn't wanna say anything about man after Mann had passed away, but he very specifically just says Lawrence Harvey was terrible in the role. And, you know, once he took over, he just ruined the film. I don't know.
It's so hard to say how that changed, but I can't help but think maybe it's just in the script, and it was just a difficult, not as strongly written script to start with.
Pete Wright: You know, the I mean, reviews and and criticism of the book, it was well received that it is a a well crafted prose, great psychological depth. It has literary aspirations, but still functions as a tense spy thriller, saying that the style is beautiful and proficient on a technical level. Like, there's a lot of praise for this book. And the the kind of praise that I see in the reviews for the book, don't I just don't see on on screen. Well, but I
Andy Nelson: think part of that also falls to knowing how to write a script. It's a very different world. It's a different animal. I think there's in a spy story, you can and and, again, neither of us have read the book. It's not very easy to to get some clear plot breakdowns and synopses of it that are a little more in-depth because it's just a harder one to track down.
But I you can get into the character's head better. You can get a better sense as to who they are, what they're thinking. And when you translate into a screenplay, I just think that there's some authors don't know how to not think internally because everything in a script basically has to be external. Yes. The actor then will take that and internalize a lot of the stuff, but a screenplay page is really just written to be a bunch of external stuff that the director and the actors then are figuring out how are we gonna put this on screen.
And I just like, maybe Derek just didn't know how to translate that. Who knows? Maybe Lawrence didn't know how to, kind of handle it in the editing. I mean, there's there's a lot of different potentials, but, we just don't know.
Pete Wright: And yet it's still a movie that shows up at six point two on the IMDb scale. Like, people like it. So I'm I I'm feeling just a touch like an island.
Andy Nelson: Well, I don't hate it. I mean, I think it's an interesting film. I mean, I think six, that would be three. I mean, it might be a little higher than I'd go, but I, I don't but I still thought it was an interesting film. I mean, I was engaged.
I enjoyed I enjoyed a lot of the elements that were going on throughout it. You know? I think it could be a lot cleaner, but I still enjoyed it. Yeah.
Pete Wright: For sure.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Okay. We liked, Tom Courtney. Peter Cook, I thought was really funny. Peter Cook is an actor that I generally think of in, it's bedazzled, which is, he plays the devil in the original version of bedazzled.
Pete Wright: I don't
Andy Nelson: know if you've seen that one. No. Then yeah. It's it's pretty fun. It's him, Dudley Moore, and I can't Raquel Welch is the the woman that he kind of creates for Dudley in that film.
It's, that whole Faustian story. But what was the, it was Brendan Fraser and who played the devil in the,
Pete Wright: it was what's her name? Elizabeth Hurley. Right? In bedazzled? In the remake.
I don't know. You're making it up. I've never seen it. As far as I know, it doesn't exist.
Andy Nelson: Well, okay. So you've never you're not familiar of the remake either? No. Well, okay. There was a remake in February directed by I think it was Harold Ramis.
Yeah. Harold Ramis. Brendan Fraser is in the Dudley Moore part, and Elizabeth Hurley is the devil in that version of the film. I haven't seen that one, but the original one is pretty fun. Peter Cook, who wrote the script, also plays the devil, and he's delightful in that film as the devil.
And so it was really fun to see him as this completely randy spy who was just, like, all about, like, laying all the women that he could throughout. Like, everywhere he went. It like, that made me laugh quite a bit with his character because it felt like were they doing some form of their own little James Bond spoof with him, you know, as the one who's always got all the women everywhere?
Pete Wright: He was the impressive clergyman, of course, in the princess bride. Oh,
Andy Nelson: yes. That's right.
Pete Wright: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That was that was my connection. I immediately thought maybe that's why it completely blinded me to bedazzled.
Andy Nelson: Well, I don't know if the remake I've never seen it. I don't know if it's worth watching at all, but certainly, the original one is a fun one to check out.
Pete Wright: Apparently, he has listed his his last credit his last credit on, IMDb is titled it's a video that I must get immediately. It is titled Peter Cook talks golf balls. And that just feels like something something we need to be a part of. That's very funny. Yeah.
Andy Nelson: Very, very funny.
Pete Wright: Yeah. No. I like him. I I like him a lot. I yeah.
And that that's to, you know, the generally, the cast is fantastic. We haven't have we mentioned Lionel Stander yet?
Andy Nelson: No. And that was a funny one because he's the Russian that won't let won't let Eberlin come back. Seeing him I mean, I think of his face in, like, the spaghetti westerns that he was in, like, once upon a time in the like, that's where my head goes with him. And so seeing him pop up as this, like, Russian, leader was really strange because it just
Pete Wright: So funny.
Andy Nelson: Definitely did not seem to completely fit even though, like, same year as Once Upon a Time in the West. But it just that seems more his world than this.
Pete Wright: You didn't do a lot of Heart to Heart in the in the eighties?
Andy Nelson: I, didn't. I never watched Heart to Heart. I mean, I maybe watched an episode or two, but it wasn't like a regular.
Pete Wright: I have to imagine getting Lionel Stander as a as a regular on that show was an incredible coup for the showrunners.
Andy Nelson: I mean, he's been around. We I I can't remember if we talked about him much, but, like, he was way back in the 1937 A Star is Born. Yeah.
Pete Wright: Yeah.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Amazing. That's a that's a man who is a great face, and he has been around the block. Quite a career. Yeah.
Yes, indeed. He's fun. Mia Farrow, did we talk much about Mia Farrow other than we just didn't like her much?
Pete Wright: Well, we didn't like the character of Caroline. Yeah. Right? And and I think, you know, that it doesn't say much about Mia Farrow. And this was this was in Mia Farrow's deeply adorable years, the adorable era of Mia Farrow.
This was also in the era she was married to Frank Sinatra, and this production, went
Andy Nelson: over schedule wise. And apparently, Frank Sinatra was so pissed that she wasn't coming home right away that he was calling every day to the production demanding that they let her leave every single day. Shortly after this, she got divorced from Frank Sinatra. I think there was a lot of, his behavior. I mean, she was young.
He was thirty years older than her. I think there was a lot of reasons that she's just like, I'm done. I'm done with this.
Pete Wright: But then did she go directly from him to Woody?
Andy Nelson: No. Andre Previn.
Pete Wright: Oh, right. Of course.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. And it wasn't directed.
Pete Wright: It it was several years before. Yeah.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Just gotta say, going speaking back going back to these stories of people and their relationships, Lawrence Harvey, he had several wives. His first wife, for a few years, then, Joan Perry, and then Pauline Stone. He married her right before, like, a year before he died. He had Domino with his last wife while he was still married to his second wife.
Pete Wright: What?
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Two years before
Pete Wright: they get divorced, he has a child with another woman. Oh my god. I there is just such a thing in my head. I cannot imagine having the kind of time to have those kinds of relationships.
Andy Nelson: Oh my
Pete Wright: gosh. Yeah.
Andy Nelson: Two last things I wanna talk about. One is the title sequence, which is actually I really enjoyed. It reminded me of the game because again, we have or no, the trailer, the teaser trailer for the game where it is a marionette puppet on its strings, and it's just being shaken and moved around in more violent and violent ways until it essentially dies. Like, that was a fantastic title sequence. Did what did you think of that?
Pete Wright: Oh, I loved it. I thought it was really great and such. It it's really of the era. Like, it just feels like here's something we're gonna do that's kinda weird and sixties, and, they didn't even know it because it was the sixties. It was deeply dated to me and very cool and weird and just felt like I don't know.
The the challenge that I have with that kind of a title is I don't know if it fit the movie because it got so frenetic. By the end, it just sort of spazzes out, and it feels less dandy and less sophisticated. So it's neither of the met the message that the movie is sending or the message that the movie wanted to send.
Andy Nelson: And they don't put it in Aspic either.
Pete Wright: And it's never once is there a mannequin in Aspic.
Andy Nelson: Do you think at the end of the film, somebody gave Anthony or, Lawrence Harvey the marionette puppet in Aspic as a as a gift?
Pete Wright: God, that would be so great.
Andy Nelson: Maybe that was the crew gifts for everybody. Everybody got maybe Amber just got Aspic. You know, pork pork foot aspic.
Pete Wright: And remember the office when Jim puts the stapler in aspic? Yes. Crazy. An aspic mold.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. My god. God.
Pete Wright: I I have just completely rewritten I know. My understanding of gelatinous substances thanks to this movie.
Andy Nelson: The last thing that was worth mentioning is Quincy Jones who does the music. I enjoyed it. It's very sixties. It you know, it's it's of its era, and I just think it's funny that, you know, we just talked about the split last week with Quincy Jones doing the music, and here we are back with more Quincy Jones with the Dandy and Aspect. It was his era.
Lots of scores this period.
Pete Wright: I thought it was great. Maybe that's why I thought the marionette worked because the music is such is so good in the opening. And it feel I mean, it just feels like like maybe Quincy's actually working the marionette himself. Maybe it's tied to his baton as he's conducting. This feels like a Quincy Jones thing.
I love it. RIP.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Rest in peace. Absolutely. That pretty much covers it, man.
Pete Wright: Yeah. This is a it's a weirdo movie. I liked it. It's an interesting one. Yeah.
Didn't love it.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Alright. We'll be right back, but first, our credits.
Pete Wright: The next reel is a production of True Story FM Engineering by Andy Nelson, music by Ilyona Harpez, Sandy Pierce, Benjamin Esterlies, Oriole Novella, and Eli Catlin. Andy usually finds all the stats for the awards and numbers at d-numbers.com, box office mojo Com, I m d b Com, and wikipedia.org. Find the show at truestory.fm. And if your podcast app allows ratings and reviews, please consider doing that for our show. Feeling trapped in the gelatinous prison of indecision about what to watch next?
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Numbers, Andy. This a box office smash like this movie, surely the budgets are preserved in aspect for you to later later reassemble.
Andy Nelson: I think more, Hollywood, accountants need to preserve these things in aspect.
Pete Wright: Just the Paramount vault is just shelf after shelf of budgets in Jell O molds.
Andy Nelson: Unfortunately, this was a real tough one, man. All I could find for Mann's last and final film was that it opened 04/02/1968, here in The States, and then two days later in London. Outside of that, there is nothing on how much it cost or how well it did, unfortunately. Crazy.
Pete Wright: Yeah. I do you remember the days when we talked about movies that you could get data on?
Andy Nelson: Yeah. I know. I feel like it wasn't that long ago, but at the same time, it seems like
Pete Wright: it was forever. Forever. Well, I I really I mean, I I'm glad we watched this movie. I'm glad we we got it on the list, and you just had an awakening. What happened?
Andy Nelson: I just remembered. I we there was a whole thing that I wanted to talk to you about, and I'm surprised that you didn't bring it up. Okay. We end this film at a car race, and you're a big car race guy. There's a person who really was into the car race information who provided some information on IMDb's trivia page.
The motor race feature toward the end of the movie runs on the then automobile workers and a v US in Berlin. The course principally consisted of public roads capped toward the north by the, quote, Wall of death, a turn paved with bricks and banks at 43 degrees. Drivers were advised to quite literally stay in their lane whilst on that banking. Note the absence of any guardrail or safety barrier. The course last hosted a Formula One race in 1959, and that bank's turn was dismantled in 1967.
No race has been held at AVUS since 1998.
Pete Wright: That circuit is bananas. Did see do you see the shape of it?
Andy Nelson: I didn't look at the actual image.
Pete Wright: So why it's I I okay. For a a race track, it's it's fun for drivers, this kind of a track, because it's basically two long straightaways with a very tight curve at both ends, tighter at one end than the other. And there is a giant conical control tower in the middle of the bigger end. And so racers just get to go all out twice, which makes it extraordinarily dangerous on every lap because they don't always slow down to appropriate cornering speeds. That may that's what makes it so dangerous at f in f one in particular and why it didn't become a stable course in the circuit.
There are others that are better. But now, apparently, you can go eat in that conical control tower. It's a restaurant.
Andy Nelson: Oh, look at that. Yeah. Wow. So Well, I mean, you can see images online of that 43 degree angle curve at the end, and that's insane. Like, that is insane.
Steep curve. Yeah. Yeah. Almost it's almost half of 90 degrees. Just picture that,
Pete Wright: and that's how steep it is. It's almost half. I'm you're right. Almost half. Mathematically, almost half.
Andy Nelson: Alright. Well, it was an interesting movie. I'm glad I watched it. I'm glad I have it in my oeuvre of things that I've watched and that we've discussed. So thanks for putting it on the list, Pete.
Pete Wright: Me too. Hey. I'm glad to do you a service.
Andy Nelson: Alright. We'll be right back for our ratings. But first, here's the trailer for next week's movie, kicking off our return to our spoiled, rotten twist endings series. We are looking at Wolfgang Petersen's nineteen ninety one film, Shattered. We all lead double lives in a way.
There's the face we show to the world, and then there's the truth we keep hidden buried deep within ourselves. It's a delicate balance, a tightrope walk between who we pretend to be and who we really are. I should know. As a member of the next reel, I've been living a double life for years. On the surface, I'm just another film enthusiast discussing movies with a passion that borders on obsession.
But beneath that facade, there's a deeper truth, a secret mission that drives everything I do. You see, the next reel isn't just a community of film lovers. Oh, no. It's a covert operation, a cinematic spy network dedicated to uncovering the hidden meanings and secret messages embedded in every frame of film. Our agents are scattered across the globe, each one a master of deception, a chameleon who can blend in with any crowd.
They analyze movies with the skill of a seasoned operative, dissecting plot twists and character arcs like a code breaker cracking an enemy's cipher. But there's a catch. In order to maintain our cover, we have to keep our true identities hidden even from each other. We communicate through coded messages using the language of film to pass secrets back and forth, always staying one step ahead of those who would seek to expose us. It's a dangerous game, but it's one that we're willing to play because the stakes are high and the rewards are immeasurable.
By joining the next reel, you too can become a part of this secret world, a double agent in the service of cinema. For just $5 a month or $55 a year, you can gain access to our network of spies, our library of classified films, and our archive of covert analysis. You'll receive ad free episodes and extended editions that go deeper than any civilian could ever imagine. But be warned, once you join us, you'll have to learn to live a double life to keep your true identity hidden from even your closest friends and family. You'll have to become a master of deception, a chameleon who can adapt to any situation.
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Pete Wright: Letterbox, Dandy. Letterbox. Now this this is always one of those interesting dances, the dance of stars, stars and hearts. This one, it's not a slam dunk five star. It's not even a banger of a four star.
It it's possibly even less. What are you going to do?
Andy Nelson: Yeah. This is a an interesting one. Like, I feel like two and a half is where I'm gonna land with a heart. Like, I still enjoyed this well enough to give it a heart. Like, it was interesting.
There were some interesting elements going on in the story. Mia Farrow was the biggest drag down for me. And after that, it's just like there was just some, like, some some of the plot elements that just didn't weren't as cohesive as I wanted them to be. So I think two and a half with the heart is still decent.
Pete Wright: The the my problem, as you know, is that it's either two stars or three stars, hard or no heart. There's no in between. There's no in between because I am comfortable making hard decisions unlike unlike others.
Andy Nelson: You have to go from 40% straight to 60%. There's no 50% ever for you.
Pete Wright: That's that that's really it. I well, 50% could be two stars and a heart, but that just looks ridiculous. I think I'm gonna go three stars no heart because I accept what's going on in the film. I I absolutely think they're they're doing some interesting things, and there are some good performances. And you're right.
Mia Farrow and and all of that. And, also, I don't know that it's gonna be one I ever return to. Yeah. I think it's just I think I'm done.
Trailer: Yeah.
Pete Wright: That's kinda no heart behavior.
Andy Nelson: Well, I guess, to that end, now I'm debating if I should give it a heart, because I'm like, I'm probably not gonna return to this film. But, yeah, I'm two and a half, so I'm okay giving it a heart for now. So that will average out to 2.75 and a heart, which will round up to three stars over on our Letterboxd account at the next reel. You can find me there at Soda Creek Film. You can find Pete there at Pete Wright.
So what did you think about A Dandy and Aspect? We would love to hear your thoughts. Hop into the ShowTalk channel over in our Discord community, where we will be talking about the movie this week.
Pete Wright: When the movie ends.
Andy Nelson: Our conversation begins.
Pete Wright: Letterbox giveth, Andrew. As letterbox always doeth. Oh my goodness. There people have long thoughts about this movie.
Andy Nelson: There are a lot of long write ups for sure.
Pete Wright: What do you think? You got one in the bag
Andy Nelson: that you're really excited about? I'm not really excited about any of them, unfortunately. I'm gonna go with, with this one. We'll see what we think. It's just it's a little more serious.
Good moody atmosphere in late sixties London and Berlin. I was enjoying it as it seemed to have a well crafted setup for some intriguing double agent thrills, but then it felt like it barely capitalized on the promising premise. I liked all the robes people were wearing. That was a three star from m.
Pete Wright: I thought the robes.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. Great robes.
Pete Wright: Excellent. Well, I've got a three star from Chris who says, for a movie with Dandy in the title starring a gay actor whose character gets called sexless multiple times, this was disappointingly heterosexual. No offense to Mia Farrow, of course. Also, I really wanted to like this so I could get into Lawrence Harvey and add another gay British actor to my list, and he was hot. But I don't know.
He just had no screen presence whatsoever, and it barely felt like he was in the movie at all. I'll give him give him another chance or two.
Andy Nelson: Yeah. There's that whole aspect of his life. The gay
Pete Wright: There yeah. There is that aspect we did not mention. That aspect. Oh god. You've done it again.
Did it again. Sorry. Okay. I am you're you're just really stuck on the aspic puns. Thanks, letterboxed.