hopscotch

Director: ronald neame

Actor: walter matthau,glenda jackson,sam waterston,ned beatty

Data Published: Fri Oct 10 1980

Genres: Adventure,Comedy

Key Words: espionage,male male relationship,homosexual subtext,reference to eleanor roosevelt,man tied up

IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0080889/

WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopscotch_(film)

Description: Hopscotch is a movie starring Walter Matthau, Glenda Jackson, and Sam Waterston. Grounded with a desk job by incompetent superiors, a clever CIA agent retires and writes a tell all memoir that will embarrass his bosses, prompting...

Plot: At Munich's Oktoberfest, veteran CIA field agent Miles Kendig (Matthau) and his team foil a microfilm transfer. Upon Kendig's return to Washington, his boss, Myerson (Beatty), reassigns him to a desk job because Kendig did not arrest Yaskov, the head of the KGB in Europe. Kendig explains that he knows how Yaskov thinks, and it would take time to identify and learn about his replacement, to no avail. Kendig's good friend and protege, Joe Cutter (Waterston), gets his mentor's job. Instead of accepting the situation, Kendig shreds his personnel file and flies to Salzburg, Austria, to visit Isobel Von Schoenenberg (Jackson), whom he has not seen in a long time. Inspired by Yaskov's chance remark, Kendig decides to write a memoir exposing the CIA's dirty tricks and general incompetence. Isobel is horrified, saying that Myerson will send agents to kill him. She nevertheless helps out and mails copies of Kendig's first chapter to spy chiefs in the U.S., Russia, China, France, Italy, and Great Britain. Myerson assigns Cutter to stop Kendig. Yaskov also pursues Kendig. Kendig baits his pursuers by periodically informing them of his location. Leaving Europe, he returns to the U.S., cheerfully renting Myerson's own unoccupied Georgia family home, where he writes a few more chapters. After leaking his address, Kendig maneuvers the FBI (which has jurisdiction) into shooting up Myerson's home. Kendig flies to Bermuda, then on to London to meet with his publisher and present the last chapter of his memoir. Yaskov informs Cutter that one of his agents spotted Kendig purely by chance in London. Kendig buys a used biplane and hires an engineer to do custom work on it. Kendig's publisher rebuffs Myerson's threats, and all the pursuers meet up at Kendig's now vacated hotel room. There, they read copies of the final chapter left for them. Kendig later ambushes Cutter in his hotel room, ties him up and gags him, and informs Cutter that he will be flying out in the morning from a small airfield near the English Channel. Isobel gives her CIA minders the slip, crosses the Channel by hovercraft to rendezvous with Cutter. Everyone converges on the airfield in the morning. On the way, Kendig suffers a flat tire and is taken by the local police to the station. When a policeman thinks he recognizes him from a fugitive bulletin, Kendig escapes by short-circuiting an electrical socket and stealing a police car. He reaches the airfield, but the Americans and Yaskov arrive soon after by helicopter. He takes off in his vintage biplane and is pursued by Myerson in the helicopter. He evades Myerson's pistol shots for a while, but the plane is finally hit and explodes over the Channel. Myerson assumes that Kendig is dead. Cutter, however, remarks that "He better stay dead." Kendig sneaks away, discarding the remote control console he used to fly the biplane. He and Isobel set for a few weeks in the south of France. Months later, the explosive memoir has become a bestseller. Kendig buys a copy in a bookstore disguised as a Sikh, much to Isobel's exasperation.