Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

Two pros who make an unlikely but very successful combination, Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson, star in "Hopscotch," a 1980 film directed by Ronald Neame. The film also features Ned Beatty, Sam Waterston, and Herbert Lom. The film received an R rating due to the use of the F word by Ned Beatty's character.Matthau plays Miles Kendig, a CIA operative who is demoted to a desk job after he doesn't do what his boss, Myerson (Beatty) expected him to do. It's just as well with Miles - he's tired and he would like to get out, but not before giving a kick to the shins of the organization. He announces that he's writing a book that will reveal a lot of behind the scenes stuff and scandals. Naturally everyone, including the Russians, want him terminated.Thus begins, with the help of his girlfriend (Jackson), a game of hopscotch around the world as Kendig leads the powers that be on a merry chase. Aware that just about everything he touches is bugged, he feeds operatives all sorts of information, changes his name more than once, rents planes, flies commercial, steals a police car, and arranges for operatives to break into a hotel room where they think he is. In his greatest coup, he calls his ex-boss from his ex-boss' house, which is then blown to bits when there's an attempt to capture him - of course, he's long gone.Both funny and dramatic, you've really got your fingers crossed for Kendig, and the film keeps you guessing as to whether he can get away from the CIA -- and what his ultimate plan is, as well how various elements fit in.Matthau is his usual, implacable, flippant self, perfect for an operative and with the right temperament to try to escape CIA clutches. Jackson gives a classy, smooth performance as his helpmate. Sam Waterston plays it straight amidst the comic elements as he attempts to bring this spy in from the warm and into the cold. Ned Beatty plays the boss like the buffoon that he is. Everything works together to make a wonderfully entertaining film.Highly recommended. Very clever and well acted. Of course, there's nothing like seeing government operatives making fools of themselves.

Matthau is one of the best field agents in the CIA. He's hated by his boss, Beatty, who humiliates him and assigns him to a desk job, to be replaced by the younger Waterston, who admires Matthau. Well, actually, everyone except Beatty admires Matthau, even his opposite number, Herbert Lom, in the Soviet intelligence apparat.In retaliation, Matthau cheerfully erases his identity and sets about writing a book that exposes all of the most secret operations of the CIA and the Soviets. Beatty is scandalized, and he and Waterston and Lom pursue Matthau and Jackson, his girl friend, all over Europe and the Southern United States. Matthau, being an exceptionally knowledgeable operative, remains one step ahead of them.He tricks everyone into believing he's been killed. The book is published and becomes a best seller. And Matthau, in a ludicrous disguise, insists on patronizing book stores and hearing his work praised.It's treated lightly, with trippingly elegant Mozart pieces used as the score. Matthau's spy is a big fan of Mozart. The scheme begins in Salzburg. Coincidentally, Bizet's "Carmen" provided the score for Matthau's later film, "The Bad News Bears." Twenty years earlier his character had hummed pieces of "Carmen" in "One, Two, Three." Twenty-three years before, he skipped down a hallway whistling a tune from Mozart's 41st symphony in "A Face In The Crowd." Should we be worried? He does well as the CIA agent, always his usual, slouching, unpretentious self. Glenda Jackson is strictly secondary, which is just as well. Her popularity always eluded me. She's so domineering and icy. Maybe if you're into bondage or something -- But Waterston is fine as the friend reluctantly drawn into the pursuit, which turns from comic to serious over time, with the threat of "termination" hanging in the air. In fact, as comedy, this is only moderately successful. There is some drollery in the script but little in the situations themselves. One of the reasons I saw it through to the end is that, with a few changes, this could easily have been a dramatic thriller with Matthau dying. The ridiculous turned into the tragic.Matthau gets to do a side-splitting imitation of Eleanor Roosevelt. Some nice location shooting, a few impressive aerial shots, and nice reactions from a balked and frustrated Ned Beatty tearing his hair out as his house is mistakenly shot to pieces.

I found this one on streaming Netflix, a real gem of a movie, every scene was absolutely interesting.Walter Matthau was almost 60, and that seems to be the age of his character, Miles Kendig, seemingly considered the best of the CIA agents. In the opening scene, to establish his character, he is in Germany and notices some interesting encounters in the crowd during an Octoberfest celebration. As the Russian spy exits the venue, Kendig confronts him, explains that he has photos, and demands the microfilm spy photo cartridge, in return he will "overlook" his being there.But Ned Beatty as Myerson is the younger, ambitious, division chief back in Washington. He isn't happy that the Russian spy is let go. So he sentences Kendig to a desk job, a menial filing job, until his retirement. But Myerson has skeletons in his own closet.Kendig decides not to get mad, but to get even. He basically fails to report to work and after a few days they begin to wonder where he was. In fact he was in Salzburg, Austria, visiting his girlfriend, rich widow Glenda Jackson as Isobel. Kendig decides to write a tell-all book about the CIA and in particular about the few he wants revenge against. He copies and sends the first chapter to a number of places, including Moscow and Washington.So most of the movie is about slick, calm Kendig always staying one or two steps ahead of the CIA who are trying to hunt him down. At each new location in hiding he writes another chapter and mails it to all the same places.Good movie, good story, good characters.SPOILERS: As the story is getting to its conclusion Kendig, also a pilot, buys an old plane outside London and tells one of the agents he will fly it to mainland Europe, because he knows all the normal exits from England are being monitored. They end up chasing him in a helicopter, and arrive over the cliffs of Dover. Then the airplane explodes over the water, Kendig is presumed dead. But we see that he was actually on land, flying by remote and had set off the explosives. At the very end we see him in a disguise, in a book store, his book "Hopscotch" is a best seller. He is with his girlfriend, whom he had given power of attorney before he disappeared, so they are set to live the good life.

This guy did more funny pictures than anyone. He should be in film class in the very first introduction. The Class title? Comedy 101.You wanna laugh? You wanna laugh again? Watch Hopscotch. This one is a keeper. You can't go wrong when Walter Matthau is an aging CIA man put out to pasture and he doesn't take kindly to it. That's OK though, he'll get his revenge. The way he makes fools of his former co-workers is just classic.I can't say enough about Mr. Matthau as a comedic actor. He just brought the goods. Maybe it's his "looks and acts like someone you know" way or he was just talented as hell. I think maybe it's both.