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.

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!

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.

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.