The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (French: Le Grand Blond avec une chaussure noire) is a 1972 French comedy film directed by Yves Robert and written by Yves Robert and Francis Veber, starring Pierre Richard, Jean Rochefort, Bernard Blier, Mireille Darc and Jean Carmet. Vladimir Cosma composed the scores of this film and its sequel.
The films tell the story of François Perrin, a hapless orchestra player who becomes an unwitting pawn of rival factions within the French secret service after he is chosen as a decoy by being identified as a super secret agent (he wore a brown shoe on one foot and a black shoe on the other that day, hence the title).
The film's sequel, The Return of the Tall Blond Man (Le Retour du Grand Blond), was released in 1974. The film was remade in the USA as The Man with One Red Shoe.
The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe provides examples of:
- Ambiguously Gay: Toulouse's sexual orientation is not explicitly mentioned in the film, but his flat is full of nude statues of men. From his balcony, he also looks at a group of male joggers with great interest, especially when a muscular jogger removes his shirt.
- Binocular Shot: François is being observed through binoculars while rowing a boat.
- Blast Out: Francois' pal Maurice, a practical joker, hands out a couple of exploding cigars — one of which, late in the picture, goes off in an ashtray during a tense Mexican Standoff between four men, all of whom promptly shoot each other except Poucet.
- Bloodless Carnage: To be expected in a lighthearted spy comedy.
- Bluff the Eavesdropper: Intelligence officer Toulouse sets the story in motion by telling his lieutenant that a 'super agent' is arriving to blow the lid off his in-house rival's operations, knowing his rival is listening in and will expose his operatives by going after the decoy Toulouse sets up.
- Body in a Breadbox: Maurice finds one of the dead agents stuffed into François's fridge.
- Bookends: In the beginning, François arrives from Munich at the airport. In the end, he goes to the airport. Someone asks him if he is going to Munich and he answers that he is going to Rio.
- The Cameo: Gérard Majax, a famous stage magician, plays the role of one of the spies who search François's flat. He's also doing the credits, with cards.
- Camera Sniper: At the airport several spies secretly take François' picture. He'd popped a large piece of chewy candy in his mouth, and every shutter click/freeze frame catches him in a goofy facial contortion as it gets stuck in his teeth.
- Chekhov's Gun: The Explosive Cigar Francois is given by Maurice plays a pivotal part in the climax when it goes off and causes the rivaling agents to kill each other.
- Cultural Translation: The film was remade in the US as The Man with One Red Shoe, with the humorous violence made more sadistic, the sexual content turned quite prudish, and the characters more finely defined as heroes and villains. It bombed.
- Emerging from the Shadows: Toulouse emerges from the shadows at the opera. Repeated in the same place by the agents in the climax of the sequel.
- Explosive Cigar: Francois' pal Maurice, a practical joker, hands out a couple of exploding cigars — one of which, late in the picture, goes off in an ashtray during a tense Mexican Standoff between four men, all of whom promptly shoot each other.
- Feng Schwing: Christine has one of these places, where she invites Francois. As her superiors watch on closed-circuit TV, she goes to change, and he kicks back on the couch with a cigarette, which he promptly drops underneath him — as he flails around manically to retrieve it, he hits a switch which opens the couch into a big comfy bed. His watchers admire his smooth technique.
- The Fool: Francois is an innocuous concert violinist who, unknown to him, is identified as a spy as part of an intelligence agency rivalry. He walks through the film oblivious to the machinations of the agents keeping tabs on him and remains unscathed as they do each other in.
- Gambit Pileup: Different parties of Government agents messing with each other's agenda.
- Gaslighting: Maurice is subjected to this — utterly unintentionally. All the time he gets to glimpse behind the masquerade, but a moment later the evidence is gone, which makes him question his sanity.
- Go Out with a Smile: Government intelligence high-up Bernard Milan gets shot along with a bunch of operatives — when he finds out the title character everyone was shooting each other over was just a decoy set up by his long-time agency rival, he manages to laugh about it as he's dying.
- Hollywood Silencer: Several government spies use silenced guns that, when fired, emit only a puff of smoke with no sound at all.
- Honey Trap: Christine is engaged to seduce François.
- Incessant Music Madness: François presenting his own composition to Christine and the agents listening in. Christine has to shout for him to stop.
- Inspector Oblivious: François has no clue what he is up against but he foils the evil plan nonetheless.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: Bernard claims to have never seen the smuggler from the opening scene but is immediately proven wrong when a photo is presented of them partying together.
- Iris Out: The movie ends with an Iris Out on François as he walks off into the distance at the airport.
- It Was Here, I Swear!: Maurice finds the dead bodies of the agents in his flat and runs out. When he wants to show the evidence to François, all the bodies are gone.
- Lie Detector: The opening scene shows a heroin smuggler hooked up to a lie detector.
- Limited Wardrobe: Maurice is only seen wearing his blue jumpsuit.
- Mexican Standoff: When factions from both sides converge on his apartment, they all draw guns — as they face off, they agree that as professionals, they won't shoot each other... then a trick cigar (given to the pawn by his friend) smoldering in an ashtray blows up, and all four men shoot at each other. Subverted because one of François's bodyguards survives.
- Mistaken for Badass: Toulouse makes Milan believe that François is a super agent. Milan is still more convinced because he cannot find anything suspicious in François's past life. When Milan decides to liquidate François, he is lucky enough to survive.
- Mistaken for Spies: François is marked as a spy by infighting government high-ups — he's blithely unaware of being a pawn in their scheming throughout the film.
- Mountaintop Healthcare: We learn that François as a teen fell sick and recovered in a sanatorium located in the mountains where he lost his virginity to the head nurse.
- Person with the Clothing: The movie title is an example.
- Pistol-Whipping: Maurice goes out after getting pistol-whipped by Bernard.
- Ransacked Room: A team of government agents sneaks through François' apartment while he's out, photographing all his personal effects and planting bugs.
- Ready for Lovemaking: Christine when François visits her. Her clothing and attitude make it quite clear that she wants to have sex with him. Nevertheless, François hesitates and does not seem to understand, so she finally has to ask him explicitly.
- Sequel Hook: The final scene shows François leaving for Brazil and the Intelligence officer mentioning that they want to continue working with him when he's back.
- Sex–Face Turn: Happens to Christine after bedding François.
- Sexy Backless Outfit: Femme Fatale spy Christine meets her intended conquest at her door in a black dress that conceals everything from her neck to her wrists to her feet. Then she turns around, and her back is completely bare, down to butt cleavage.
- Shoutout: The names of François's bodyguards, Poucet and Chaperon, are references to Hop-o'-My-Thumb (Le Petit Poucet in French) and Little Red Riding Hood (Le Petit Chaperon rouge).
- Slip into Something More Comfortable: Christine switches into a very transparent nighty when François comes to visit.
- Spies In a Van: A team of agents bug François' apartment and listen in from a van made up to look like a florist's. They record a sexual tryst he's rather unwillingly having with his best friend's wife. Later, they're playing it back as the friend is just outside on a bicycle — he concludes his wife is having an affair with a florist.
- Spotting the Thread: Inverted and Played with. François is a pawn chosen because a detail (his shoes) singles him out of a crowd and looks like a thread waiting to be pulled. Then, Toulouse counts on Milan to put that random guy's life under scrutiny to find any semblance of evidence that it's a cover for some super-agent.
- Spy Cam: Several of these are in use to capture the hero when he arrives at the airport, hidden in places like firelighters and cigarette packs.
- Theme Naming: Colonel Toulouse's two goons are called "Poucet" (Tom Thumb) and "Chaperon" (Riding Hood).
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Applies to Maurice and Paulette.
- Unluckily Lucky: François is a magnet for mishaps but always emerges triumphantly from them.
- Work Info Title: A title that describes the main character.
