Rendezvous Reviews

This fictional spies-and-laughs movie was based on a non-fiction book about cipher-breakers during WW I. Myrna Loy was on strike at MGM, so this role was given to Russell and she did very well with it. Powell is the puzzle editor at a Washington newspaper. He quits to join the army during the Great War. He's about to go off when he meets Russell, a bright young woman who is well connected to the government as her uncle is an official in the War Department. They fall in love in a day and promise to meet when the war is over. He gets on a troop train, but she has already pulled strings and has him taken off and brought back to the capital to use his puzzle-brain to decode German messages which are being sent out of the Russian embassy, where the Kaiser's men have taken refuge. Powell meets Barnes, a Russian spy, and that almost knocks his romance out with Russell. Powell eventually breaks the code and the German plot and is on his way to the front when Russell does it again, and he is brought back to Washington. Witty, urbane, and with some real menace, this movie has a lot going for it. The truth is that they did use puzzle-types to help in deciphering codes, and that process is shown. Margaret Dumont is seen here without the Marx Brothers but is hardly noticed. Powell and Russell are a good team and play off each other well.