Hopscotch (film)

Hopscotch is a 1980 American film directed by Ronald Neame and produced by Edie Landau and Ely A. Landau. It was written by Bryan Forbes and Brian Garfield, based on Garfields novel of the same name.

The movie opens at Munichs Oktoberfest. Kendig and his team foil a microfilm transfer to an East German spy. However, they purposely do not apprehend Yaskov. Kendig is summoned to Washington, where his supervisor, Myerson Beatty, is forcing Kendig into semiretirement and a desk job because Kendig didnt arrest the Russian. Kendig resists, claiming to be a field man, and, on his own initiative, takes leave, shredding his file en route. It is days before that is discovered. He goes to Salzburg, Austria to hear some Mozart and visit an old friend, Isobel Von Schoenenberg Jackson. It is here that he seizes on the idea of writing a book exposing all the dirty tricks of the CIA, KGB and other spy agencies. Isobel is horrified to read the first chapter and tells Kendig that theyll all come after him to kill him. Nevertheless, he mails copies of the chapters to the various spy chiefs in the US, Russia, China, France and Great Britain. Soon enough, Myerson and Yaskov are after him, just as he wanted.Kendig baits his pursuers by periodically informing them of his location while nevertheless staying one step ahead. Leaving Europe, he rents Myersons own Georgia country house, and writes a few more chapters. The CIA trace him there, but the FBI shows up as well, and hearing the firecrackers Kendig sets up to go off, start blasting away at the house with rifles in front of the frantic Myerson, who goes in to a fit of apoplexy as his house is destroyed by the FBI shooters. This scene is accompanied by the aria Un bel D, the suicide scene from Madama Butterfly Puccini. ........

Source: Wikipedia