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Meddlesome Rosalind Russell is positively grating in her first star billing, continually disrupting the flow of the plot and detracting from my enjoyment of the action. What idiot would spike the coffee of the chief cryptographer with sleeping pills in the midst of his trying to decode a secret enemy message with the lives of thousands of American troops hanging in the balance? "I was just trying to get you to get some sleep," was her meek response after the damage was done. And she continually does things like that! I suppose it was meant for comedy relief, but it didn't work for me. What was enjoyable was the persistent and methodical decoding methods used before computers were invented, and the follow-up in the effort to break a German spy ring, including an exciting but improbable ending. William Powell gives his usual wonderful charismatic performance, with Binnie Barnes also excellent as the femme fatale German spy and Cesar Romero very convincing as her accomplice. All other acting was uniformly good, but why was English-accented Henry Stephenson cast as a Russian ambassador?

Based on a book by Herbert O. Yardley, who was the head of the U.S. Secret Service during WWI, the film has an air of authenticity.

I think this film is a lot more enjoyable than did almost any of the other reviewers. They say the Russell character is annoying, and some even seem to blame it on the actress, rather than on the script, with one even claiming that she tries to steal the film from Powell. If you don't like it, blame the writer(s), but not the performers. I had never heard of this film before, had no knowledge that Russell was put into it as a Loy substitute or as a possible threat to Loy's status at MGM, yet almost the first thing that hit me about the film while watching it is what an excellent Nora Charles Rosalind Russell would have made. Up to the point of seeing this film, I had never even thought of anyone measuring up to Loy in that role, but Russell might well have done so. The character may be objectionable to some viewers, but the performance is perfect for what is being asked of her. Powell, of course, is standing on the top of Mount Everest in a role like this; nobody could ever touch him. But the whole cast is very good, most especially Binnie Barnes, who even only two years after THE PRIVATE LIFE OF HENRY VIII, has already done a marvelous job of shedding her British accent, but we're so used to her as a fairly high-comedienne that it comes as a surprise to see her here as a somewhat sympathetic-but-still-ruthless villainess, and she's really quite perfect (as she had been as Henry's last choppee!). I thought this a most enjoyable film throughout, mainly for the performances, true, but also for its lightness of touch.

WILLIAM POWELL and ROSALIND RUSSELL have good chemistry here--although Russell gets the short end of the stick with an annoying "comic" character who disrupts everything in sight, including the plot.

The spy ingredients are nicely handled and there's a lot of behind-the-scenes decoding efforts going on in the World War I era that add interest to the storyline.

Nice to see Lionel Atwill on the good side for a change and Binnie Barnes is fine as a femme fatale heavily involved in the spy network. Cesar Romero keeps a poker-face as one of the ring members but is convincing enough in a minor role.

None of it makes for a great movie, but it passes the time quickly with an interesting glimpse of Russell before she perfected her comedy technique and Powell already at the peak of his comic timing. Cast includes Samuel S. Hinds and Charley Grapewin (Dorothy's uncle in 'The Wizard of Oz').

A rather uneasy mixture of comedy and suspense--but a stronger script would have helped considerably.

Have always appreciated comedy and try to appreciate all types. One can't go wrong with anything that incorporates suspense, being a fan of thriller and mystery which is full of it if done right 'Rendezvous' certainly did appeal to me. If done right too, romance can work great too and there have been films that have mixed comedy, suspense and romance very well (i.e. 'Charade'). There is a lot of talent in the cast too so there was a lot going for this film.

The good thing about 'Rendezvous' is that a lot of it does work, there are many things that work very well indeed and it is definitely well worth seeing, with most of the cast being the main reason. At the same time, it doesn't live up to full potential and a couple of the things that easily could have worked brilliantly disappoints quite badly which is pretty frustrating. Sorry but part of me does get a little narked when something has a good deal of potential but either doesn't live up to full potential or completely wastes it.

'Rendezvous' does have a good deal of good things. It is very nicely filmed and has the right amount of grit without looking under-budgeted. William Axt's score is a mix of jaunty and ominous, which worked very well with the film's tone(s). The script does amuse and thought provoke and the direction on the most part is well judge. The story generally compels, but works best in the spy elements which were intriguing and clever as well as with the right amount of suspense.

Some of the comedy was amusing and cleverly interpolated. William Powell is in a part perfect for him and manages to show an expert mix of funny, debonair and intense. Binnie Barnes is also a delight and steals all her scenes while Cesar Romero is also in a role well suited to him. Seeing Lionel Atwill in a non-villain role was a pleasant surprise and he doesn't look taxed at all.

On the other hand, not everything in 'Rendezvous' works. There could have been less going on, a little too much goes on and parts are more tangled than they should have been which gives the film an at times over-complicated feel. Not all the comedy gels, more subtlety was needed and some of it distracts from the plot rather than moves it along.

Do agree too that Rosalind Russell, replacing Myrna Loy who would fitted the part perfectly, has an extremely annoying and sometimes implausibly written character and tries too hard, so she becomes annoying as well sadly. She and Powell's chemistry doesn't really sparkle and doesn't really gel either, actually didn't think they looked completely comfortable together.

In conclusion, interesting but decent but had the ingredients to be great. 6/10

This is a so-so movie starring the wonderful William Powell. I swear the man could have brought the phone book to life. It's a film about a spy ring, breaking some codes, and finding the mole. Costars include young, dark-haired Cesar Romero (by the time I knew who he was, he had white hair), Binnie Barnes, Lionel Atwill, and Rosalind Russell in a very early - and very annoying role. Russell is pretty (except for what looked a clown costume turned into a woman's suit), and she was certainly a masterful actress/comedienne of stage and screen. But this was not a good part. In fact, as I was watching it, I thought, I wonder if anyone else found this character - well, not very likable. The character reminded me a little bit of Katharine Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby, where Hepburn pursued Grant. But Katharine Hepburn played an airhead, and Russell portrays a down to earth woman. Somehow, her making a nuisance of herself with Powell isn't as fun as seeing Hepburn do it.

Bottom line, it's just not a great script, but it is interesting to watch.

If you like William Powell enough (or another actor in this film) and its venue, you may flow with it. It is a weaker one to my view, and while not a throwaway, not really picked up by anyone in particular. The character Russell played was incongruous and annoying, though she was probably refreshing as a newcomer. There's a bit too much overdone flip and horsiness about her performance here and in a lot of her pictures, to my taste. Likely, it's a script flaw, but given the level of weight of the decoding project at hand, her stunts are incongruous at best. The fact that she had such easy access is also unbelievable, despite her connections by relation. Also, she doesn't really work with Powell's character. After about her third shenanigan, I think, that's it for her. He'll move on. But he trots right along and they end up together. What? That a man of his caliber would hook up with a loose cannon like that just really doesn't work. And they aren't believable together. Binnie Barnes' character, though the villainess, was easier to take down, being consistent and well enough done. This essentially war picture has its interest, but I can't say after one more run through, I would care to repeat. But I do hang onto my classics and after some time, enjoy going back for just the era and actors. One can always ogle the clothes if nothing else.

Most of these reviews mention how Russell was a poor replacement for Loy. I didn't really make that connection as I'm a fan of Russell's from My Girl Friday. She was much better in MGF, I will grant you, but it didn't lessen my enjoyment of Rendezvous just because Loy was not in it.

William Powell plays Bill Gordon, a genius puzzle solver, who gets duped into becoming a code breaker for the Army by Russell's Joel Carter when America enters WWI. She is the niece of the Asst Secretary of War and uses her connections to get Gordon placed at a desk in Washington D.C. to keep him near. Its supposed to be cute and romantic, but it comes off as spoiled and cruel. Gordon then goes on to break an important spy message and leads him to a ring of spies operating in town.

Powell is amazing as usual. The opening scene where Joel mistakes him for a Russian singer and Gordon plays along is vintage Powell. He had great comedic chops and timing. The code breaking scenes are fantastic as Powell conveys wit, genius, and tension as his character goes through the long hours and countless failures trying to crack the code. As I said, Russell has done better work. Her role is is to act as a ditsy foil to Powell and it doesn't work.

The supporting cast is brilliant. While Russell was a the weak link in her first major role, the rest of the cast does great work. Binnie Barnes and The Joker himself, Caesar Romero, as German spies are top notch. Lionel Atwill as Gordon's boss provides a looming presence. With a tighter script and less pratfalls from Russell, this could have been a wonderful spy drama. It seemed they tried too hard to shoehorn in the comedy instead of letting it develop naturally with the plot.

If you are fan of Powell's this is a movie that needs to be part of your viewing library. If not, focus on the code breaking scenes and its still a fun ride.

With America just entering WWI, Bill Gordon (William Powell) joins the army as a lieutenant, ready to deploy to France and fight. Right before he deploys he "meets cute" a girl at a cocktail party, Joel Carter (Rosalind Russell). They have a bit of a whirlwind courtship, and Joel begs him to stay. Gordon refuses, but along with that refusal admits to Joel a secret about himself - He wrote the ultimate book on cracking codes under a pen name, and the War Department has been moving heaven and earth trying to find out who the author really is. The next morning, getting ready to board his boat, he is ordered to a desk job. Apparently, Joel is the niece of the assistant head of the War Department, and she has ratted him out as an ace code cracker in order to keep him around Washington. Complications ensue.

This was Rosalind Russell's first starring role, so she doesn't really have her screen persona down which she finally develops in "The Women" four years later. So MGM has her playing this annoying creature who causes trouble for Gordon every time she appears. No way do I believe he'd want her around after all of her frustrating antics.

This is almost like a movie actually made in 1917 - it is such an anachronism. First off, by 1935 when this was made, WWI was considered a waste of blood and treasure, and here Europe was feauding with Germany AGAIN. That is why Congress passed some laws to keep us out of any potential war there. Yet Gordon is practically George M. Cohen here, he is just so anxious to land in a trench in France. Then there are the German spies. Remember these are NOT the Nazis and the Nazis won't be taken seriously for another three years or so. But MGM has them acting exactly like Nazis - ready to turn on each other, ready to kill to save their spy ring.

Finally there is the cryptography issue. There were no computers in WWI, and so I'm sure standard blackboards and cryptography wheels were used as shown to crack codes, but the method that Gordon uses to crack the code - mainly a variation on the primitive Vigenère cipher - would be cracked relatively quickly and it would not take an ace cryptographer to do so. Forgive that digression into geekdom.

This is very much worth your time with great performance by William Powell as always and a look at Rosalind Russell in the beginning.

Not an often shown film, nor a great one, this is worth your time if TCM ever shows it again. The plot is somewhat dated but nevertheless interesting -- code breaking and spy catching -- if you ignore some of the excesses that were probably added by Hollywood. Folding in comedy, drama, and action into what would probably have made an excellent military training film, we are left unsatisfied with the overall effect. Yet there is a hint of the "Thin Man" chemistry between William Powell and Rosalind Russell that brings a smile to your lips. Fair but I am not sorry that I watched it.

I'm a big fan of William Powell, Rosalind Russell, screwball comedies, and old spy flicks. Wouldn't it have been nice for the two stars to have been in the same movie? After their amusing meeting near the beginning sets up a fine romantic comedy to follow, Powell glides into a serious espionage drama, while Russell goes full-throttle Gracie Allen ditz, with a side order of lovestruck Ginger Rogers.

Film series about The Thin Man, Bulldog Drummond or the lesser-known Torchy Blane, manage to blend the comedy and mystery elements into a harmonious union. This one plays out like a double bill that got spliced into a single mismatched plot. What a waste of talent and opportunity to start with such a promising pairing and end up with Russell's character so woefully out of place for the last 3/4 of the production.

I am not sure why all the mediocre reviews. I found the movie very intriguing and funny where it is supposed to strike laughter. I wish people would stop all of the comparisons of any of William Powell's leading ladies to Myrna Loy. Ms. Loy was a competent actress in her own two-dimensional way. However, actresses such a Rosalind Russell, Ginger Rogers, and Kay Francis gave superior performances alongside Mr. Powell just as much, if not more so, than Myrna Loy.

I enjoyed this movie - it wasn't a classic, but it was definitely a cut above the norm. The fascinating part was, in my opinion, seeing Rosalind Russell in a "Myrna Loy" role! It was like watching one of the Thin Man movies - seeing her interact with William Powell, speaking lines like Nora Charles, and even looking very much like Myrna Loy.

William Powell is about to head off to France to fight the War when would-be girl friend Rosalind Russell has him transferred to the Black Room, the Army's code-breaking division. The Germans have broken the 'unbreakable' code devised by Lionel Atwill; Atwill has been killed, and it's up to Powell to break the spy ring in Washington.

There are some fine moments in this movie. The scene in which Powell is dragged into the code-breaking room is particularly good. However, there is so much slovenliness is the production that it makes me wonder how much producer Lawrence Weingarten cared. While the military uniforms are WWI-appropriate, the costume design is otherwise contemporary; the letterhead of the Kingdom of Marshovia appears, as if the Germans are in danger of facing Maurice Chevalier; and a sentence in what is supposed to be spoken by Powell is in a totally different voice.

Contemporary audiences undoubtedly didn't notice these flubs, even though they weigh heavily on me. The attempt to merge a serious drama with screwball in Powell's relationship with Russell works pretty well, and the fundamentals of codes and ciphers are well handled. With Binnie Barnes, Cesar Romero, Samuel Hinds, Charley Grapewin, and Johnny Arthur.

This 1935 MGM film finds William Powell in what was becoming a well-suited role for him, a man involved in mystery and danger and in this case espionage as well. Though it plays more like a mystery, Rendezvous is the story of a U. S. War Department cryptologist based on the life and career of Herbert O. Yardley. Like Yardley, Powell's Lieutenant Bill Gordon has written a book on creating and breaking codes. His book was written under a pen name but when he confides his identity to junior league girl Joel Carter he suddenly finds himself behind a desk in the War Department's code room instead of on his way to the front as he had intended. It's 1917, the height of the War and Washington is crawling with German spies. Their object is to trick the U. S. into thinking shipping lanes are safe then torpedoing troop ships. You see, they have broken the Allies code but no one has broken the German's code. Powell must not only break their code but also trick their agent, the beautiful Olivia Karloff, (Binnie Barnes) into revealing the whereabouts of their espionage group.

That setup is almost perfect, especially with Powell coming off his successful run of Philo Vance detective films. However the gigantic success of "The Thin Man" the year before combined some comic elements into a traditional detective/mystery film and they attempted to do this again. This time, however, it did not go as well. They intentionally did not cast Myrna Loy in the part Because Louis B. Mayer didn't want her thinking she was indispensable and cast newcomer Rosalind Russell instead. That was not in itself a problem, the problem was in the script, not Russell, who would prove her worth in later films. Her character is intended to be a comic element to create situations for Powell's Bill Gordon to get out of. It works the first few times but soon wears thin. Her character was drawn much too broadly for a serious espionage thriller and she is so clueless and airheaded that she might as well have been played by Billie Burke. Her capers and very presence get exasperating after a while and one starts hoping she actually won't pop up in a scene, though in fact she appears more frequently as the film progresses.

By the end of the film you can't help but wonder what Bill Gordon sees in her, though in movies of this era, once people fall in love that's all there is to it. You can't question it. You can question Bill Gordon's wanting to go to the Front. I guess this is just supposed to be patriotism, but he's supposed to be a former news correspondent and a man of his intelligence should know he was of much more value breaking codes and saving lives than shooting a couple Germans in person. Besides, as a correspondent he should have also known about the stalemated trench warfare where troops were dying from exposure and disease and had few chances to shoot anyone.

Still, if you can ignore the attempts at comedy, this is a good little espionage film and had they filmed it in a totally serious vein it could have been a minor classic. The supporting cast is excellent and includes William Brennan as a British Intelligence Officer and Cesar Romero as a Russian Attache. Most notable is Binnie Barnes as Olivia Karloff, looking fatally gorgeous in every scene and playing her part of a femme fatale to perfection. Usually she played comic characters, so this side of her was a real surprise and I wish they had cast her in these kinds of parts more often. For a mystery there are few actual surprises but as a thriller it's taut and suspenseful. Definitely worth watching.

It's not her fault - she plays the character as written.

But it's written as a pathologically dim-witted and selfish oaf, whose presence - rather than providing comic relief - merely jars.

It's lazy screenwriting of the misogynist flavor, and so insistent that it's impossible to overlook.

Powell gets some dumb dialogue too, but not in the same ballpark. And he gets or gives many good scenes as well.

The movie is worth watching (listening to?) for William Powell's line delivery alone, and some of those lines are hysterical. The dialogue is SO fun. There are some terrific twists and turns in this plot, though the clothes and adornments in the movie are so clearly NOT from the turn of the century and WWI, when this story is supposedly set. The very poorly-done over dubbing of several lines, done in post-production in order to take out most German references, which movie producers feared would make Hitler angry, are SO awkward and often done by someone that is NOT playing the role - yet, knowing that now, watching the movie, made it all the more interesting to me to watch, making it a movie representing a lot more than the storyline, but a particular point in history (when the movie was made). A lot of folks here say Rosalind Russell is miscast, but she's not at all - Myrna Loy would have been awkward as the dizzy dame Russell plays.

During WWII, this film was remade as PACIFIC RENDEZVOUS---a perfectly dreadful film due to one glaringly bad performance. While RENDEZVOUS is certainly better than this remake, it, too, suffers from a glaringly bad performance.

In both films, you have almost two films within a film. The first is a rather exciting yarn about cryptography and an effort to smash a German wartime spy ring. The second involves an unnecessary plot with the leading character falling in love with a "kooky" girlfriend who always seems to be blundering into trouble. This combination of a serious spy story and a fluff piece just didn't work. It was very bad in this film--it was even worse in PACIFIC RENDEZVOUS. What made it bad here wasn't just the character, but that they did this with Rosalind Russell--a good actress who deserved so much better. Well, now that I think about it, leading man William Powell certainly deserved better as well. Think about it Powell and Russell and yet they still managed to make a mediocre film!

In 1917, Allied shipping is being sunk by German submarines. The Allies are relying on codes to transmit rendezvous location for the convoys. The only problem is that German spies are already cracking the code. Newspaper man Bill Gordon (William Powell) is newly commissioned Lieutenant headed for the front. Socialite Joel Carter (Rosalind Russell) is taken with him at an embassy party in Washington. He is secretly a cryptography expert. Despite his wish to go to the front, she gets her uncle Assistant Secretary of War John Carter to send him to work as a cryptologist in D.C.

The movie works best with Powell and Russell together. They need as much time together as possible. The movie falters when it's trying advance the story without either one of them. Joel could simply be Bill's secretary. There is still a problem with Joel's jealousy. She knows that the Russian is a suspected spy but she is still jealous. It makes her look stupid rather than it being funny. Cryptography is pretty boring as a backdrop for a thriller. This movie tries to spice it up with a spy ring. While Bill is a smart cookie, he is rather careless in hunting down the spy ring. He could easily be kidnapped. Joel is infinitely worst. I like Powell and Russell. I just don't like some of the writing.

It is quite a bizarre mixture of spy film and Rom.The most likely reason for this is the desire of MGM to ensure that this spy film would have some appeal to all types of audiences.Maybe the factor of at least 8 writers contributes to the explanation.There are many sub plots that go totally unexplained.Caesar Romero plays a Russian officer who is part of the German spy ring.Given that the two countries were at war why was he working for the enemy.Who shot Charley Grapewin and how did he get past the guards?William Powell wants to go off to fight the war,but would never have been allowed to go because of his knowledge of intelligence work.Rosalind Russell inherits a badly written part and does her best with it.