Hopscotch (1980) on Netflix
At Munich's Oktoberfest, CIA agent Miles Kendig lets KGB chief Yaskov slip away. His boss Myerson answers with a desk job, so Kendig destroys his own file and heads for Salzburg.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.1/1010,188 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes79%
Trailer
Plot summary
CIA field agent Miles Kendig breaks up a microfilm transfer at Munich's Oktoberfest. Back in Washington, his boss Myerson gives him a desk job because Yaskov, the KGB's chief in Europe, was not arrested, and hands Kendig's old post to Joe Cutter. Kendig tears up his personnel file instead and travels to Salzburg to see Isobel von Schönenberg, a former lover. Yaskov guesses what has happened and invites him to defect; when Kendig refuses, Yaskov asks sarcastically whether he will retire and write his memoirs. Kendig decides to do exactly that, exposing the agency's covert practices and its incompetence. Isobel is horrified, but she mails the first chapter to intelligence chiefs in the United States, the Soviet Union, China, France, Italy and Britain. Myerson assigns Cutter to stop him, and Yaskov pursues his old adversary.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Hopscotch (1980)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Walter Matthau, who was Jewish and had lost many relatives in the Holocaust, refused to film on location in Germany, but gave in because he wanted Ronald Neame to cast his son David and later his stepdaughter Lucy Saroyan, who played the pilot who takes Kendig to Bermuda.
SPOILER
Walter Matthau agreed to appear only if Garfield reworked the script to play to his gifts as an actor, then joined rewrites that continued throughout the film. The Hollywood Reporter credited him with the ending, in which Kendig disguises himself as a Sikh, and the Salzburg wine scene; Neame said he could have asked for credit.- Ronald Neame said Matthau's agent suggested putting in some Mozart because it would greatly please the actor; arranger Ian Fraser found many sections that fitted the movie, but nothing to go with Kendig typing, so they asked Matthau, who brought in some Mozart that went perfectly with it.
- Garfield's original script for Hopscotch reflected the dark tone of the novel, and at one point Warren Beatty and Jane Fonda were in line for the leads.
- The scenes set during Munich's Oktoberfest were filmed at the Munich Fairgrounds using eight cameras concealed in strategic locations, rather than on a set.
