The Return of the Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe

The sequel to a French comedy. In the first film a violinist fell by accident into the middle of a spy operation. The intelligence service had picked him for no reason, put men on him, and built an entire operation around him. This film tells what follows immediately. François still knows nothing and is getting on with his life. Inside the service the score is not settled. One director was brought down, another took his place, and the old men do not forgive it. Milan wants revenge. To him the whole matter is in François's hands, and he puts the man under surveillance again. From there the film is a story of watching. Listening devices, false identities, a hospital, a concert hall and a house. François does nothing. He plays his violin, sees his girlfriend, goes to his friend's house; every movement acquires a meaning on the other side. The joke rests on this. Ordinary behaviour is read as code by intelligence and the men's interpretation goes the wrong way every time. What the narrative is interested in is not espionage but institutions: the film presents the service as a mechanism that feeds itself and manufactures work although nothing is happening outside. Maurice's line continues. His friend still does not know the situation between his wife and François, and the second vein of comedy is there. Pierre Richard plays the part without words. The character barely speaks; all the humour is built from movement and timing. The first film has to be known. The narrative explains nothing again. Pierre Richard, Jean Rochefort, Jean Carmet and Mireille Darc are in the cast. Yves Robert directed. Who it is for: anyone who likes French comedy of the 1970s and has seen the first film. Who it is not for: anyone expecting an independent film; the sequel repeats the same joke and falls below the original.