L'extravagante Madame Pollifax

Based on the books by Dorothy Gilman this movie tells the story of an old lady who gets into the spying business. By a funny coincidence Mrs Pollifax becomes an undercover agent for the CIA. Her mission is to get some important documents from Morroco; while pretending to be an ordinary tourist. Things get out of hand when Mrs Pollifax gets kidnapped by a terrorist group. And that's not the only challenge she will face.

The storyline isn't really all that great, and there are some coincidences and plot holes; but the performance of Angela Lansbury as the adorable Mrs. Pollifax definitely makes this movie worth your while.

9 out of 10.

I've been inspired by this film for 17 years now, and I keep going back to watch it. It also motivated me to read most of the books in the Mrs. Polifax series, and when I did, I learned that this film was a combination of plots from two different books. Angela Lansbury provided another stunning, high-quality performance as Mrs. Polifax, in a more edgy and modern context than in her role as Jessica Fletcher on Murder She Wrote. However, Mrs. Polifax is in keeping with Angela Lansbury's persona as a strong and independent female character in search of justice and truth, though this time in a world of spies with competing ambitions and international intrigue. I'm just disappointed that this film didn't turn into a longer series based on the books.

I was excited to see a movie rendition of this charming mystery series. And having Angela Lansbury as the delightful Mrs P. really upped my anticipation. Then I watched it. Mrs Lansbury was a good choice for the main character, and that was about it. The entire show made me wonder if the screen writer had read only bits and pieces of several stories, because that was how the movie played.

This book series deserves attention on the individual books. The situations Mrs Pollifax gets herslf into, and out of, are plenty interesting, full of danger, ingenuity, and intrique, and lend themselves to great "TV movie" telling. I am sorry this show is out there, because people may not read the books after this awful movie. Let's hope Anglea Lansbury can be persuaded to do her again, maybe even produce the shows herself.

They started out with a great idea -- making the beloved Mrs. P. into a movie -- but went about it half-heartedly. Angela Lansbury did a decent job, but otherwise the casting left a lot to be desired. They used most of the good characters from all the other books, leaving no room for more shows (which, under the circumstances was probably a good thing).

I had never read the Mrs. Pollifax books so watching the movie was a completely new experience. I really enjoyed it, Angela Lansbury played the part PERFECTLY. I also think the other actors did a very good job. It was of course a made-for-TV movie which always means low-budget and not-the-best screenplay but overall was very good FOR a TV movie. It seemed choppy switching from the first half to the second half, like it didn't flow very well switching to a new plot...which makes sense. Not many movies have two completely different plots. If you ask me it seemed like two 1 hour TV shows that happened to play back-to-back. However I would very much enjoy seeing this made into a TV series!