Brian Garfield

(On Cable TV, June 2020) Sure, you’ve seen spy comedies—but how about a retired spy comedy? In the surprisingly satisfying Hopscotch, Walter Matthau plays a CIA spy with a head full of secrets and fingers itching to dance on a typewriter—he retires out of spite and then, to get even with a bad boss, threatens to spill everything he knows in his autobiography. Knowingly baiting the CIA in a globetrotting cat-and-mouse game, he sends clues and “falls” for traps, except that he’s skilled enough to be the cat and spring counter-traps on whatever the CIA tries. Hopscotch is not necessarily rip-roaringly funny, but it is amusing, clever, compelling and somewhat more pleasant than most espionage thrillers of the era. Matthau has a role that suits him well, and he never misses an opportunity for the kind of rumpled-face sly-dog humour that best characterized his screen persona. My biggest problem with Hopscotch is Glenda Jackson’s helmet-like hairstyle, but her character is likable and well-written—like much of the script in general. (Adapted from a novel by novelist Brian Garfield himself, the film is more literate than most of the subgenre.) Hopscotch is a treat for Matthau fans, a welcome antidote for glum 1970s spy thriller fans, and a happy little victory for all cinephiles.