Hopscotch is a 1980 American film directed by Ronald Neame and produced by Otto Plaschkes. It was written by Bryan Forbes and Brian Garfield, based on his novel of the same name.
The film is a comedy starring Walter Matthau as Miles Kendig, a renegade CIA agent intent on publishing a memoir exposing the inner workings of the CIA and the KGB. Sam Waterston and Ned Beatty play Cutter and Myerson, Kendig's protege and his bumbling former boss, respectively, and are repeatedly foiled in their attempts to capture him and stop the publication of the damaging memoir. Herbert Lom is Yaskov, the sympathetic KGB agent with an equal interest in his capture. Glenda Jackson plays Isobel von Schonenberg, his Austrian love interest who helps him stay one step ahead of his captors. Walter Matthau and Glenda Jackson also appeared as a couple in House Calls. Matthau's son David plays Ross, a bumbling junior CIA agent.
The movie was received in a lukewarm manner by critics and was a moderate financial success during its release.[citation needed]
Synopsis
After a sting operation in Munich, Kendig is summoned to Washington, where he learns his supervisor, Myerson (Beatty), is forcing Kendig into semi-retirement and a desk job. Kendig says he's a field man, and, on his own initiative, takes leave, shredding his file en route. It is days before that is discovered. He goes to Salzburg, Austria to see Mozart and Isobel Von Schonenberg (Jackson).
Kendig baits his pursuers by periodically informing them of his location while nevertheless staying one step ahead. He hides out in Myerson's own Georgia country house, which is then heavily damaged by gunfire from the FBI when Kendig sets off firecrackers inside it while making his escape. He foils their pursuit by dumping oil on the road, sending his pursuers' cars into a ditch.
He escapes to Bermuda by seaplane (piloted by a woman portrayed by Matthau's stepdaughter Lucy Saroyan), then to London, to meet with his publisher to give him the last chapter of the book. Yaskov tells Cutter (Waterston) that Kendig is in London. Both the Soviets and the Americans go to London and find Kendig's hotel room, where he has left a tape recording telling them he has finished the book and that he will be escaping Britain by a small plane the next morning. He leaves a copy of the last chapter and the location of the airfield from which he plans to make his escape.
In the meantime, Kendig has contacted Isobel, who is under surveillance in Austria by the CIA. She cleverly escapes her watchers and goes to England by hovercraft. Kendig has also contracted with an engineer for a specialized electronic device for the airplane of unknown purpose.
Cutter and Myerson threaten Kendig's publisher but he rebuffs their attempts at intimidation. Kendig, on the way to the airfield, suffers a flat tire. He is picked up by the local police, who cordially invite him to wait in the station until the morning. When one policeman recognizes him from a bulletin, he escapes by short-circuiting an electrical socket and stealing a police car.
He reaches the airfield in the morning, but the Americans and Russians are hovering overhead in a helicopter. He apparently takes off in his vintage biplane and is pursued by Myerson in the helicopter. He performs intricate loops in the plane evading the pistol shots from Myerson.
It is then revealed that the electronic device that Kendig had built is a specialized remote control device. Kendig is actually still on the ground. (How he did this in an open field without being seen from the helicopter is unclear.) Once the plane has cleared the cliffs and is over the English Channel, he presses a button, exploding it. The Americans and Russians rush to the cliff, see the wreckage floating in the sea, and conclude that Kendig is dead – except Cutter, who sees through the plan and realizes that Kendig did not die in the plane ("He better stay dead") but decides to keep this insight to himself.
Kendig meanwhile returns to meet Von Schonenberg and they set off for the south of France. Months later, the book has become a bestseller. Kendig is in a bookstore in disguise as a Sikh to purchase a copy. He learns from the clerk that the book is very good and that there is a rumor that Kendig is still alive in Australia. Von Schonenberg pulls him aside and scolds him for taking too many risks.
Sources
The film has been described as a comedic variation on the 1975 dark thriller Three Days of the Condor starring Robert Redford, using the same premise of one CIA agent pursued by others intent on covering up dark secrets of the agency—or a comedic version of Philip Agee's rebellion.[citation needed] The movie has also been classified in the genre of post-Vietnam American comedies such as Stripes (1982) that played on the perceived incompetence of the federal government.[citation needed] The book's author explained in a documentary on the DVD that rather than basing the book on anything specific, he was unhappy with the spy movie genre, sensing that it had become more about gadgets, violence and sex than either realism or trickery, and wrote Hopscotch to be a spy novel without the sex, guns and gadgets.
Music
The music includes many pieces by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Notable examples include the aria Non Più Andrai from the opera The Marriage of Figaro, the andante movement from Eine kleine Nachtmusik, the first movement of Mozart's Piano Sonata No.11, K331 (best known for the third movement, the Rondo alla turca), and a Rondo in D, K382.
Herrman Prey's lusty singing of Non Più Andrai magnificently highlights the absurd antics of the old biplane as Myerson is shooting at it. The song tells how Cherubino ("little baby"), going into the Army, will no longer be a dainty favorite, just as 5-foot-7 Myerson is going to lose his power at the CIA. Also, the song describes bullets flying and even bombs exploding.
There is also the aria Largo al Factotum from the opera The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini. Matthau sings this as he passes a border checkpoint. The words to the aria explain how everyone is looking for the barber, and he moves fast like lightning.
Kendig has the aria Un Bel Di Vedremo "One Beautiful Day" from Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini playing loudly on the stereo as the FBI and CIA shoot up Myerson's wife's house. The weird wailings add a surreal air of ironic justice to the events as Madame Butterfly sings how she will hide from her husband.
Matthau, who had a great personal fondness for opera, is said to have selected the soundtrack himself.
The credits also list "Once a Night" written by Jackie English and Beverly Bremers. This must be the loud number sung in the bar by Debra Hook with the Silversmith Band. Matthau looks like it's hurting his ears.
Credits
Production
- Otto Plaschkes - producer
- Ronald Neame - director
- Bryan Forbes - screenplay
- Brian Garfield - screenplay and novel
Cast
Trivia
Clips from Hopscotch were used by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart on 31 July 2007, to accompany their take on the news that day about the FBI raid on the home of Ted Stevens, the long-time member of United States Senate representing Alaska. The clips used were from the scene showing the FBI raid on Myerson's country house, which was heavily damaged by gunfire. It was called outdated and listed as "some old movie we saw on cable".
External links
