Mod Embroidery

Like all too many of its forerunners in the mod-spy genre, Otley makes no sense after the second reel. Until then, it appears to be an espionage thriller about a whimsical drifter and sometime antique dealer named Otley (Tom Courtenay) who sacks out one night in a mate's apartment and wakes up to find his friend dead. Everyone naturally thinks that Otley can clear up the killing, so he is frantically pursued by the Special Branch, the Other Side and a sultry-but-eniematic counterspy (Romy Schneider). No one is really who he pretends to be, which makes for more confusion, but all is put right at the end, with Otley wandering once more among the antique boutiques.

The acting, at least, is not bad. Courtenay, as usual, is excellent, and there are a couple of sharp character performances by James Villiers as an overstuffed, treacherous fop, and Freddy Jones as a shrill and sinister faggot named Proudfoot. But their portraits are so much pretty embroidery on a pale and well-worn pattern.

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