The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (Le Grand Blond avec une chaussure noire)

Le Grand Blond avec une chaussure noire (The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe) is a 1972 French spy-film parody directed by Yves Robert. It runs about 91 minutes and has a score by Vladimir Cosma. Made under the Gaumont banner, it won the Silver Bear at the 1973 Berlin Film Festival and, for its popular success in Germany, the Goldene Leinwand in 1976.

The story centres on the naive, bumbling violinist François Perrin, played by Pierre Richard. Seen at an airport with one black shoe, he is mistaken for a secret agent by intelligence chiefs locked in an internal feud. Watched, bugged and dragged into their power struggle without knowing it, Perrin keeps slipping out of danger. Bernard Blier, Jean Rochefort, Mireille Darc, Jean Carmet and Robert Dalban are among the cast.

Robert wrote the script with Francis Veber, loosely inspired by the autobiographical book La Cinquième Corde by the Israeli violinist Igal Shamir. It was Richard's first turn as Veber's emblematic character, which he played six more times. A sequel, The Return of the Tall Blond Man, followed in 1974, and Stan Dragoti remade the story in 1985 as The Man with One Red Shoe, with Tom Hanks.