A Dandy in Aspic

A Dandy in Aspic (Anthony Mann, Laurence Harvey, 1968) Another spy thriller from the 1960's, just one of dozens that were released post-James Bond boom, hoping to capitalize on the success of those films.

 

In this one, Laurence Harvey plays a double agent—Alexander Eberlin—working for the British Secret Service. He's upper-class, arrogant, and a snob, but quite good at his job, and when we first see him he is in the business of burying a colleague—killed by the Soviets, apparently, the third agent to meet such a fate recently. The Service is in a tizzy With three men down, they assign Eberlin the job of tracking down the suspected soviet agent behind the killings, whom they identify as Krasnevin. They want the agent tracked down and killed before any more harm can come top one of their own. Seems easy enough.

 

The only complication—which the British do not know—is that Eberlin himself is Krasnevin. He has been working for the Soviets for years, infiltrating the British Service for years. The man identified in the briefing as Krasnevin is actually his Soviet contact "Pavel" (Per Oscarsson). Somehow, he must convince the British that he can do the job, while at the same time, get back to his masters in the USSR, before he is found out. 

One can see why the story would attract director Anthony Mann, who directed a slew of fine films (mostly in the film-noir and western genres) about conflicted men pushed to their self-imposed limits by individuals just that much worse than they are. For Eberlin, it's his fellow agent Gatiss (Tom Courtenay), who is determined to find the traitor in their midst and has a sociopathic zeal to do whatever it takes to bring him to ground. Gatiss, ironically, is the perfect spy, while Eberlin is not. And they're pitched in a mano a mano battle, while Eberlin fights his on a larger scale between nations and their bureaucracies.

The film itself is not so interesting, save for that one aspect. It has the curious distinction of being one of those spy films with no one to root for, everyone in a pitched battle of wits with merely the size of the arena being the distinction. No, the curious thing is that it feels like two distinctly different films, owing to the fact that it's Mann's last film—he died after finishing principal photography in Britain and while filming in West Germany, where star Laurence Harvey (who had directed The Ceremony in 1963) was picked to complete the film in mid-filming to protect the project's investment. And their styles are decidedly different.

This (I'm fairly certain) is an Anthony Mann shot.

Where Mann has a composer's eye for interesting angles and communicating relationships with where he puts his camera relative to its subject, Harvey's style is less classically-trained (especially with wide-angle compositions) and more geared to current catch-as-catch-can fashion. Mann, also, traditionally, tried to fill the frame with as much detail as possible, those specifics forming patterns to direct the eye to what he thought was important, whereas Harvey seems satisfied just to "get the shot" artfully or not.

This looks like something Harvey shot.

Mann's way has a scope to it, a dimensionality, whereas Harvey's compositions are flat and uninteresting, almost static and off-kilter (something Mann was more than capable of, but to a narrative purpose). It makes it a distracting watch, not because it's a good movie, but because one ends up playing "who shot this?" as a way of passing the time, until, finally, one just runs out of good material to admire and admits that "Harvey did this" for the remainder of the movie.

"Harvey" again

Hardly a way to generate suspense. But a way to get through it, at least. Plus, one has early roles for Mia Farrow, Peter Cook (playing straight but in a disorientingly comic way) as well as Lionel Stander, who's always fun to watch.

Mann directing? The shadows make me think so.

So. A potentially good film, tragically not living up to it. The film didn't do well at the box-office as the 1960's "spy-craze" was waning, and about to go undercover as comedies. And although Mann is officially credited as being the director on it, I have a hard time thinking of A Dandy in Aspic as his last film.

The Last Gangster

The Last Gangster (Edward Ludwig, 1937) Six years after ushering in the gangster film with his portrayal of Johnny Rico in Little Ceasar for Warner Brothers, Edward G. Robinson was playing another one named Joe Krozac in a property titled Another Public Enemy, written by William Wellman, the man who wrote and directed James Cagney's Public Enemy. For whatever reason, the property made it over to M-G-M, not the tough-as-nails "Home of the Crime Drama" Warner Brothers, and got gussied up with the Metro house style and a more family-friendly story-line. The result is a curious mixture of crime and melodrama, re-titled The Last Gangster.  

In this one, Robinson plays Joe Krozac, a mob-boss with a very loose mob, but a lot enemies, including the Kile brothers, whom he manages to wipe out except for one, Acey Kile (Alan Baxter) who manages to survive but swears revenge. 

It's bad timing because Krozac has taken an extended trip to Europe and returns with a bride from the old country, Talya (Rose Stradner), who knows nothing of his criminal activities. But, she can't help but notice the prosperity and shady character's in Joe's life, like Curly (Lionel Stander), who's a bit sketchy. But, you'd think she'd notice there's something a little "off" about Joe; when she announces she's pregnant, Joe's response is "Why, I'm so happy I'd like to go up and punch someone in the nose!"

But, life...and the law...can be inconvenient. Joe is convicted of tax evasion and sent to Alcatraz for ten tears—that's a lot of childhood to miss out on—and he vows that no pen can hold him, not for ten years. But, life is different on the inside and although his reputation helps, there are enemies on the inside, plus his gang on the outside, who want to know where he stashed all his loot before going to the Big House.But, however big he talks, he's still there when Talya gives birth—to a boy. Visitations to Alcatraz are bittersweet, as Joe cannot hold his child, but only watch him through prison-grills. On one of those visits, a newspaper scribbler named Paul North (James Stewart) sees the poignant scene and decides to make hay out of it, feigning sympathy for Talya and buying the child a toy gun, all the better to get a picture of the toddler making like father, like son and plastering it all over the newspaper. His editor is happy, but North quits in a fit of delayed conscience.

North apologizes to Talya, and she is drawn to his remorse, something completely foreign to Joe Krozec. Eventually, their marriage breaks down—Talya divorces Krozec and marries North, adopting Joe's child—and Joe loses track of them, as they move and North changes his name.

Stewing prison, Joe can't do anything about it, but he's determined to get his family back.

Robinson was attracted to the movie, even though he'd tired of playing gangsters, preferring better scripts and better writers than the genre churned out. And even though Wellman was associated with the genre—and grown out of it—the ideas of the story, originally titled "Another Public Enemy," were less concerned with mob life, but its consequences, and M-G-M was a cut above the more meat-and-potatoes Warner lot.

Still, The Last Gangster is more soap than pulp, and as much as script-writer John Lee Mahin tries to keep the script tough, he can't help but make the mobster more sympathetic than the good folks like the North family. Probably, it's Robinson's portrayal, which is far stronger than Stradner's "woe is me" immigrant wife (Louise Rainer was originally sought, but turned it down) and Stewart's weak portrayal.*

It has to be considered some kind of misfire when the actions of responsible people who are genuinely doing the right thing for a child, can't generate more sympathy over a jilted mobster. 

The Last Gangster would not prove to be the last gangster role for Robinson—just one of the lesser ones.

* I'm always fascinated by odd pairings of stars and seek them out to see what the results of such chemistry experiments are. Anybody expecting sparks between Robinson and Stewart will be disappointed. It's Robinson's show and Stewart's merely a dull co-star. The two wouldn't appear in another movie together until 1964's Cheyenne Autumn, but had no scenes together.