Crackling with wits, dry humor and a knowing complicity of taking pleasure in mockery leveled at exasperating authority figures, Ronald Neame’s cold war satire HOPSCOTCH breathes a fresher air into the espionage genre at then, wherein a rogue senior CIA field officer Miles Kendig (Matthau), ignites a secret revolt against his nincompoop superior Myerson (Beatty) - who relegates him to a desk job after he refuses to apprehend the bureau’s adversary Yaskov (Lom), the head of KGB in Europe, for very practical reasons - by writing a first-hand beans-spilling memoir divulging the headline-worthy dirty jobs of both sides of the Iron Curtain that imperils him in a cat-and-mouse chasing game around the globe, yet he can always stay one step ahead of his pursuers. The chummy camaraderie between two opposing forces in the opening Munich’s Oktoberfest operation sets an uncharacteristic, pacific tone of this jovial globetrotter, after all, we are all ordinary humans, different political inclinations can be tempered with like-minded fondness, likewise, Miles’ protégé Joe Cutter (Waterston) also half-asses in the action, to the extent that he is only too willing to be gagged and pinioned, to let Miles get off the hook. The other significant helpmate is Miles’ old flame, his widowed former colleague Isobel von Schonenberg (Jackson), who is a pro herself if she wants to give the inept agents the slip and Ms. Jackson is a hoot and a half with her slam-bang oratory and a sophisticated chirpiness, Apart from exacting his petty vengeance to an increasingly vexed Myerson, such a wonderful feeling of schadenfreude to simply watch the latter’s vacant family abode being peppered with bullets and tear gas, all right in front of the own eyes of an infuriated Myerson, Miles actually formulates a fail-safe exit route to assure the life of Riley in retirement, of course, with Isobel, and Neame’s directorial legerdemain aims for crisp clarity in action and highly entertaining set pieces without weighing down by a contrived plot, and it works extremely well toward the final ace up Miles’ sleeve. It goes without saying how immensely affable is Walter Matthau in his puppy-face deportment, married with carefree levity and droll ordinariness, he conjures up a very disarming aura that few actors could match before and after. Miles, also being an avid classic music and opera aficionado incessantly pumped up by Mozart, Rossini and Puccini, is an oddity in a treacherous line of work, ergo, Neame’s HOPSCOTCH is a delightful mood-changer in an often too callous a genre buoyed up by the usual suspects, eternally resolving around action bravado and Janus-faced betrayals. referential entries: Neame’s THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE (1969, 8.0/10); Elaine May’s A NEW LEAF (1971, 6.9/10).