Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire

If imitation is the highest form of flattery, then Hollywood has paid homage to this Gallic gem. And, as usual, the original is better than the Hollywood copy.

The best description of this classic is the oxymoron: sophisticated slapstick. But there is much more. Like the category list suggests (comedy, mystery, and more) there's something for everybody, and you needn't be a Francophile to enjoy it.

Simply delightful!

This film was one of the most successful crossover French films of the 70's, and for very good reason. It is a delightful spoof of the spy genre, with a hapless musician unknowingly caught in the middle of a war between two factions of the French secret service. The plotting is extremely funny, the directing tight, the music (played by Zamphir on the pan pipe!) unforgettable, and above all the ensemble acting by a stellar cast will have you watching this again and again. Pierre Richard, playing the title character, brings an unusual elegance and sense of class to what would otherwise be a Woody Allen-esque role (it was played by Tom Hanks in the American re-make). Mireille Darc is the femme fatale, and there were quite few teenage boys in the 70's who never got over the image of her in a jaw-dropping backless dress. The rest of the group, from the cool head of the Secret Service, to the efficient but misguided spies, to the bumbling best friend and his wife, all leave indelible memories. Thirty years after having seen this film for the first time, I can remember everything with crystal clarity, and my own kids have found it just as delightful. Go ahead and rent this one for truly fun evening, you will love it!

This is one of the funniest films I've ever seen. Pierre Richard is HILARIOUS! The script is tight as a mosquito's leotard and the action unrelenting. The story, based in part on a serious of government agencies play SPY vs. SPY games and bureaucratic CYA, arbitrarily pick a fall guy for their foil and who better than a musician hooked on modern music. The amazing thing is Richard's apartment where the walls are covered with pictures of modern composers, dominated by a huge picture of Stravinsky. And, the riotious aside when he tells the girl trying to pump information from him that he has a "secret." When all of the spying evesdroppers stretch their ears to hear, he announces, "Je compose." Is this some new code? They look from one another as Pierre takes his violin and warns, "Mais, elle est moderne," and launches into a chromatic allegro ala Stravinsky. The movie goes on with great slapstick abetted by the marvelous timing of Richard who is rivalled only by Peter Sellars in that means. As the other reviewer noted, there was a decent American version with Tom Hanks, who played the part a lot more low key than Richard. I've seen this movie more than a dozen times and plan to see it again soon. Each time I find some new twist that gives me an extra tickle. Check it out! On s'amuse assez avec ce film-ci!

Successfully spawning a sequel and a Hollywood remake, Tom Hanks' starrer THE MAN WITH ONE RED SHOE (1985), and augured from its ingenious legerdemain in the opening credits, Yves Robert's THE TALL BLOND MAN WITH ONE BLACK SHOE is a beguiling divertissement that mocks the espionage profession and retains the essential Gallic funny bone.

Our protagonist is the titular tall (?, he looks very average), blond François Perrin (Richard), a French violinist, who is randomly chosen as a bait because he wears one black shoe and one brown shoe (owing to a practical joke) when he arrives in Orly airport from Munich, a whim of Perrache (Le Person), the assistant of Louis Toulouse (Rochefort), the chief of France's Counter-Espionage department, who clandestinely retaliates his treacherous second-in-command Bernard Milan (Blier) by deliberately letting the latter on that François is a top spy who has kompromat to hazard his position.

Milan rises to the bait immediately, with his whole team working in succession to stake François out, break into his apartment (and playing with a set of matryoshka dolls) and keep tabs on his visitors and telephone calls, trying to fish out what he knows, obviously, all to no avail. Only after a recoiling honey trap set by agent Christine (Marc), Milan finally loses his patience and demands François to be roundly dispatched, but unbeknown to him, Perrache assigns two agents to safeguard François, so the ensuing internecine shoot-out takes a heavy toll on both sides, and completely behind François's back.

Yes, the off-piste leitmotif is that, during the whole shebang, François is insouciantly oblivious about the happenings, resumes his daily routines - a tryst with Paulette (Castel), the harpist in the same orchestra and the wife of his best friend Maurice (Carmet), a percussionist - and plays in an evening concert (a cock-up to the dismay of the conductor, played by Robert himself), then a wee-hour consummation with the mysterious, sultry Christine, who even more mysteriously, falls head over feet for him and defects her superior afterward, and in the jolly ending, the pair flies to Rio together, in different airliner compartments though, only leaving Maurice, beset by his numerous encounters with the goings-on and its unsavory aftermath, firmly believes that he is mentally unstable and needs heavy medication.

Comédien Pierre Richard relaxedly inhabits François with a mix-bag of clownish, aw-shucks, yet louche facades (although gobbing gums in the airport doesn't leave a great first impression), playing off against the agents' collective callousness and dead seriousness, he is endowed with a Benigni-esque comical facility to dampen the plot's innate implausibility, so is Jean Carmet, a dutiful foil that nails the deadpan impression after his character becomes increasingly enmeshed with and befogged by contradictory situations, so much so that questioning his own sanity seems to the only possible way to justify it. All in all, the film is a thoroughly pleasurable vintage comedy that has enough sophistication and élan to spare for a second go-round.

Many, many years ago -- the mid-70s, in fact, this movie was on TV in our local area. It was one of the few times I'd seen my dad really excited about a movie, and watched it with him.

It's stuck with me ever since.

This is a brilliant piece of film-making, satisfying as both a comedy and a spy movie. Pierre Richard has a masterful sense of comedic timing, on par with Buster Keaton.

If you get a chance to see this, do.