MISS PLUNKETT TO THE RESCUE

An arch, cardboard burlesque like all-too-many others. Retired third-grade teacher Miss Augusta Plunkett is recruited by a former pupil, Inspector General Frederick J. Ponsonby, to retrieve the stolen plans of the great Dandy Doodle Noodle Machine, on which the country of Pugwell's worldwide noodle leadership tests. For those who want to know more: Miss P. tracks the prime suspect, Fast Eddie, to the Hotel Metropole in Piltweg; finds that ""Someone else had gotten there first""; and then tracks that someone, Dirty Digby, the cleverest spy of Nether Dilchwood, almost to the border of dread Nether Dilchwood itself. Indeed, he takes her for a fellow-fugitive and entrusts her with the twice-stolen plans before (for reasons also too complicated to explain) all involved land in jail. . . from which Miss P., naturally, will ultimately extricate them. Except for one or two bits when Miss Plunkett acts in character (e.g., remembering that kids put chewing gum under seats), this is all too artificial and hokey to be even mildly amusing.