Tony Mastroianni Review Collection
"Mrs.Pollifax" offers little but Rosalind Russell
Cleveland Press April 3, 1971
"Mrs.Pollifax -- Spy" is playing at local theaters. Comedy-adventure; general audiences. In the cast are Rosalind Russell, Darren McGavin, Nehemiah Persoff. Running time: 110 minutes.
"Mrs. Pollifax -- Spy" is a spy spoof that never works, a comedy -- adventure with little comedy and less adventure.
It's pleasant enough at a television level and the personal appeal of Rosalind Russell works in the pictures favor.
IN FACT, that's about all it has -- Miss Russell's ability to make even bad lines sound good.
She portrays the Mrs. Pollifax of the title, a New Jersey widow whose children are grown and married. She is determined no to become just another senior citizen so she presents herself to the CIA as a volunteer spy.
This promising beginning goes nowhere. Sent on a routine courier mission to Mexico she is kidnapped along with another CIA agent (Darren McGavin) and flown to Albania.
THE SITUATION is hopeless, but in a Rosalind Russell vehicle, the star is able to charm her way out of any situation. Which she does.
The humor is strained when there is any and the plot developments are out of a comic strip. Miss Russell is game if nothing else and in one scene she crawls around in a herd of goats and pretends to be one of them.
