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 comedy/mystery is simply delightful. You can call it a masterpiece of its genre(s) or you can just enjoy its great timing, hilarious physical comedy, its story that involves spies, murders, and a sexy blonde (Mireille Darc) in a dress you have to see to believe. Pierre Richar is excellent as the blond man of the title who one day became a "person of great interest" for two rival departments in the French secret service. As we know, it is very difficult to find a black cat in a dark room especially if the cat is not in the room and that's what the experienced employees of the secret service try to do - to find the sense in the routine activities of a man they are convinced is an important spy and who is in reality an absent-minded and oblivious violinist and the object of the practical jokes by his fellow musicians.

If it is not enough, there is a soundtrack written by Vladimir Cosma and performed by the King of Pan Flute, a famous Romanian musician Gheorghe Zamfir. Cosma recalls that when he was composing the music for The Tall Blond Man, he was thinking of the movie "The Spy Who Came in From the Cold" and he wanted to use the elements of the Eastern European music. His idea to use the themes of Romanian doinas played by Zamfir was a stroke of genius. Once you hear the melodies, you won't be able to forget them.

YES to the movie and YES!! to the soundtrack

Pierre Richard at his best. The movie has both verbal and slapstick comedy scenes which are some of his best. Mireille Darc when she turns her back to hapless Pierre. The dead bodies everywhere (including the refrigerator). A great comedy if you can understand the French.

Now finally available in a collected set of DVDs

"Coffret Le Grand blond - 2 DVD Le Grand blond avec une chaussure noire - Le Retour du grand blond De Yves Robert Avec Pierre Richard, Jean Rochefort, Mireille Darc DVD Zone 2 - Pal. 2 volumes"

But for the English speakers - you may have to check out the Web to find some subtitles - product available from www.FNAC.com in France.

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.

This movie is certainly one of the best I've seen. Just delighting. Like some journalists like to say: Two tumbs up and if your an alien, 3 or 4 tumbs up! Today, movies like this are rare. If you like it you should see the second one: Return of the Tall Blond with One Black Shoe. As good as the first one!