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.
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.