The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe

The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (Le Grand Blond avec une chaussure noire, 1972) is a French spy comedy parody directed by Yves Robert, who co-wrote the screenplay with Francis Veber. It follows François Perrin (Pierre Richard), an unsuspecting violinist spotted at an airport wearing one black shoe, who is mistakenly identified as a secret agent by intelligence officials locked in an internal power struggle. Unaware that he is being watched and manipulated, the bumbling Perrin stumbles through surveillance operations and assassination attempts, somehow escaping every danger unscathed. Bernard Blier, Jean Rochefort and Mireille Darc co-star. The film won the Silver Bear at the 1973 Berlin Film Festival. Richard reprised the character in the 1974 sequel, and the story was remade in English as The Man with One Red Shoe (1985) starring Tom Hanks.