At Munich's Oktoberfest, veteran CIA field agent Miles Kendig and his team foil a microfilm transfer.

On the spot, Kendig decides to do exactly that; write and publish a memoir exposing the dirty tricks and general incompetence of Myerson's CIA.

She nevertheless helps by mailing copies of Kendig's first chapter to spy chiefs in the U.S., Soviet Union, China, France, Italy and Great Britain.

Leaving Europe, he returns to the U.S., cheerfully renting Myerson's unoccupied Georgia family home, where he writes more chapters.

When a policeman recognizes him from a posted fugitive bulletin, Kendig escapes by short-circuiting an electrical socket and stealing a police car.

Kendig's biplane evades Myerson's gunfire for a while, but the plane finally appears to be hit and suddenly explodes over the Channel.

Meanwhile, Kendig sneaks away from a deteriorating building on the edge of the airfield, using a barrel of spent oil to dispose of the remote control that he used to fly and destroy the biplane.

The song tells how the young Cherubino, 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.

[citation needed] The aria "Largo al Factotum" from the opera The Barber of Seville by Gioachino Rossini is also featured.

Kendig has the aria "Un bel dì, vedremo" ("One fine day we'll see") from Madame Butterfly by Giacomo Puccini playing loudly on the stereo as the FBI and CIA shoot up Myerson's wife's house.

The operatic contrapunto adds a surreal air of ironic justice to the events as Madame Butterfly sings how she will hide from her husband.

The AFI catalog refers to a Hollywood Reporter article describing two of Matthau's significant contributions: the ending, in which Kendig disguises himself as a Sikh in order to visit a bookshop, and the scene in a Salzburg restaurant where Kendig and Isobel, apparently strangers, strike up a conversation about wine that reveals more and more about them and ends in a passionate kiss.

In the novel, Kendig fakes his own death using a body recovered from a Paris street and includes all copies of his manuscript, ensuring it will never be published.

"A lark, a comic cloak-and-dagger adventure ... a stylish, lighter-than-air vehicle that moves from Munich to Salzburg to Washington to the Deep South to Europe and back without once losing its breath.

It is beautifully played by Mr. Matthau and Miss Jackson and by a supporting cast ... directed by Ronald Neame and scored largely by Mozart.

[9] Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a rating of 81% based on 31 reviews The consensus reads: "Boosted by a deftly underplayed performance from Walter Matthau, Hopscotch is a Cold War spy caper with comic bounce.

As the movie walks a fine line between serious drama and satirical comedy, and between topicality and escapism, it beguiles the viewer with its sophistication and complexity.

The most surprising aspect of Hopscotch, however, may not be how well it walks that tightrope, but that its makers accomplished this balancing act in an era that saw the spy movie genre reduced to tales of relentless despair.

[15][16] Matthau was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Musical or Comedy for his performance as Miles Kendig.