7.1 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Two factions of the French Secret Service involve a seemingly normal orchestra player, François Perrin, into their battle as one side uses him as a decoy. Soon, agents are all over the place, and one of them, Christine, is sent to seduce François. Meanwhile, François has his own problems, tangled up in an affair with his best friend's wife.
Starring: Pierre Richard, Jean Rochefort, Mireille Darc, Colette Castel, Jean CarmetForeign | 100% |
Thriller | Insignificant |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Mystery | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.66:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.66:1
French: LPCM 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
English
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 5.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 1.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
America may have invented silent film comedy, but it was the French who first perfected farce as a dramatic art, where absurd situations, physical comedy and split-second timing conspire to leave audiences gasping with laughter. A number of French filmed comedies have united the two art forms, but none more effectively than Yves Robert's 1972 classic, The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe (or "Le grand blond avec une chaussure noire"). With a razor-sharp script by Francis Veber, who would go on to co-write La Cage aux Folles and write and direct Le dîner de cons (remade here as Dinner for Schmucks), The Tall Blond Man was a huge success in Europe and did remarkably well in America at a time when foreign films barely made a ripple in the U.S. market. The Tall Blond Man's inventive clowning required no translation. Like the films of Chaplin and Keaton, such works are easily transportable. Gaumont, the original studio behind The Tall Blond Man, released the film on a region-free French Blu-ray in 2014 that we reviewed here. Specialty publisher Film Movement has now released a Region A edition in the U.S. as part of its new line of "film classics".
The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe was shot by René Mathelin, a frequent collaborator with director Yves Robert and also with Philippe de Broca, for whom Francis Veber wrote several scripts. According to Film Movement, their 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray is based on a new 2k digital restoration, which appears to be the same one used for Gaumont's Blu-ray released last year (and reviewed here). The restoration has brought this 33-year-old film vividly to life, with remarkable clarity, detail and densities and a wonderfully varied palette that captures France of the early Seventies in both its formal style (among the spies in their offices) and its wilder look that so many young Americans made pilgrimages to find: colorful, sophisticated and carefree. The blacks are very good (look at the musicians' formal attire during the orchestral performance), and reds pop from the frame. The source material appears to be in excellent shape, and the restoration has repaired any age-related damage or deterioration without imposing a video look on the film. Occasional shots are so clean as to suggest some judicious digital processing, but not to the extent of introducing artifacts or removing detail. Film Movement has mastered The Tall Blond Man with an average bitrate of 25.00 Mbps, and the compression has been carefully done.
The film's original mono soundtrack has been encoded in lossless PCM 2.0 with identical left and right channels. (The listing on the reverse of the jacket for "Dolby Digital" is a misprint.) For its vintage, the track has good dynamic range, allowing the many jokes that depend on sound effects to work properly. The French dialogue is clear, and the English subtitles appear to be newly translated. The jaunty score by Vladimir Cosma (The Closet), with its distinctive pan flute, sounds as good as ever.
Film Movement's version does not include the documentary from the region-free Gaumont Blu-ray, no doubt in part because it has no English subtitles.
Comedy as an art form has often been undervalued, but the precision balancing act of a work like The Tall Blond Man is every bit as demanding as the grand logistics of the largest screen epic. Even apparently casual elements that register subliminally in the background, like Toulouse's apartment that Milan has bugged, with its living room entirely furnished with massive Greek statues of nude men and its balcony next to the up-thrusting Eiffel Tower, have to be carefully chosen, positioned and photographed for maximum impact. The airport sequence where Perrache chooses François is a Hitchcockian tour de force of exchanged glances and stares, with each shot carefully planned. Watched for laughter, for craftsmanship or for both, The Tall Blond Man is a classic and highly recommended.
(Still not reliable for this title)
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