Le Magnifique [DVD]

Really good film

Funny. Saw it a long time ago. Well done. Actor is convincing both as forlorn writer and special agent. Ahead of its time. Has not aged.

It is a bonafide burlesque of super spy novels. Duality at work, down on his luck author and his alter ego breaking the fourth and 'fifth' walls on a whim and a prayer, beguiling audience with tonge-in-cheek social commentary, leaving no cliche-rock unturned in this madcap landscape of 007 meets Austin Powers as a figment of imagination on acid. It is a celebration of human spirit that goes beyond the cinematic and into the elusive land of the metaphysical, a divine comedy that renders all other genres of its type obsolete. It is La Magnifique. For once I am out of words. . . as long as the DVD is there idling on our shelf for posterity, humanity has a chance. Now pur your iphone on mute, put out a 'Do not disturb' sign on a door knob, make yourself a cup of Mocha cup of coffee, curl up on a sofa, turn off the lights and press play. Get ready to be trancended.

Action-comedy Le Magnifique aka How to Destroy the Reputation of the Greatest Secret Agent is perhaps the most fun of Philippe De Broca's collaborations with Jean-Paul Belmondo, a 1973 spoof of secret agent movies and pulp novels that clearly exerted a heavy influence on Jean Dujardin and Michel Hazanavicius' OSS 117 spoofs and probably Austin Powers as well. Bob Saint-Clair is the kind of superspy who always gets the girl and never misses the bad guy and, naturally, only operates in the most exotic locations. He's also the creation and altar-ego of terminally broke Francois Merlin, author of 42 novels including The Maltese Pigeon, all written from his apartment in the wrong part of an almost perpetually rainy Paris where he reimagines his publisher, plumber and even a traffic warden as violently despatched villains with no concern other than meeting his deadline so he can pay some bills. That changes when Jacqueline Bisset's student moves in upstairs and starts reading his novels and, worse still, analysing their appeal, and before long he's straying from his winning lowest common denominator formula and undermining his character at every turn as he overanalyses everything and tries to write something that will impress her. That's pretty much it for plot, but it's all played with such straight-faced silliness, whether it be a shootout with an army of frogmen interrupted by a cleaning woman vacuuming the beach, an ill-advisedly discarded cyanide pill killing an entire swimming pool of tourists or the walls of an Aztec temple lair running with blood. Yet as silly as it is, it's also a surprisingly accurate film about the perils of the writing process thanks to De Broca and Francis Veber's script, though sadly it starts to fall apart in the last reel as the novel gets too misogynistically absurd while an attempt to contrive a crisis back in the real world to give the film a big finish falls flat. But luckily the rest of the film is so much fun and Belmondo is having such a ball with all the self-parody that even in a dubbed version you can forgive it. And how can you not love a film that begins with a man being killed by a shark in a phone booth? The French PAL DVD includes an unsubtitled French and dubbed English soundtrack.

This my favorite movie of all times. This comedy has it all. Actually, it's more than comedy. It's a spoof of the James f%$&#g Bond spy movies. It's a story of "real" life and even love. Show it to a teenager and he will enjoy its action. Show it to a pacifist and he will applaud its mockery of action movies and their primitive plots. I don't want to spill beans and kill all the movie's greatness. All I can say, everybody who watched it on my advice, from Rhodes scholars to us - average Joes, loved it (maybe for all different reasons :). A word of caution although - no matter what happens at the beginning do not turn it off (didn't I mention it's extraordinary). Jean-Paul Belmondo is LE MAGNIFIQUE. I watched a lot, maybe even most of his movies. His carrier span over decades. Not all of his movies are great but he gave them all his great talent and made them better just being there. Enjoy Le Magnifique - the movie and the actor. Do yourself a BIG favor - don't read other reviews. People try to build up your interest by giving away too much of a plot. Would you want to enjoy full power of the movie or just survive through it? If you are not going to try to find some other movies by JP Belmondo, I will eat my hat. Just call me :)

The Movie itself is fantastic. I probably paid too much for it, but it was worth the money. HOWEVER, there is No DVD menu. There is only a chapter selection when the menu button is pressed. This makes it very difficult to switch subtitles and languages without a fancy dvd/bluray player.

Bob St Clair, espion extraordinaire - James Bond with a French twist - is our hero, flexing his muscles with a modest, self-satisfied smile as he and the beautiful Tatiana fend off the villains, until... ...as he guns down another bunch of baddies on a Rio beach, a maid comes through the action, pushing a vacuum in her carpet-slippers - and we're back to real life, where Francois Merlin is hammering out the story on a crocked old typewriter. Both Merlin and St Clair are played by Jean-Paul Belmondo - but as Merlin he's unshaven, unwashed, in rumpled grey clothes, a Gauloise dangling out of the corner of his mouth. As Bob St Clair he's tanned, glossy, a lady-killer. Everything's going wrong for poor Merlin: the plumbing in his grotty flat has given up; he has a mad fancy for the unnoticing Christine, the gorgeous student upstairs (Jacqueline Bisset, who also plays the mysterious Tatiana, besotted by Bob St Clair); his publisher is a bully. And the disasters of real life infect his story. His typewriter's 'e' key breaks, and the characters lisp their dialogue without it. His publisher becomes the bumbling supervillain... Very funny, and this Region 1 version is the only one with English subtitles. Every writer should see this film.

I ran into this movie on late night television and not having seen the very beginning was following it diligently, sucked up in the absurd torrent of action, when suddenly a maid was coming across the beach with a vacuum cleaner during a battle. Though this doesn't pretend to the gravitas of a Bunuel, taken in the right way it's every bit as surreal and liberating. It weaves in and out of simple frames of interpretation. Just when you think it's a tad too simplistic, it turns around and puts out another layer of interpretation only to then lampoon it. Jacqueline Bisset and Belmondo are both amazing. Watch this in the right state of mind, open to its playful silliness. Would make a good double bill with 'The Stunt Man'; both are surreal, philosophical explorations of action and its relationship to existence.

確かに珠玉の名作、とまでは言えないスラップスティックコメディ ではあるのですが、ベルモンド氏もビセット嬢も魅力に溢れ、 底抜けに楽しい映画です。「オースチン・パワーズ」を観る感覚で 楽しんで頂ければ幸い。TV放送での印象が強烈で どうにか日本語吹き替え版の復刻を祈るや切。

フランス語だが、英語の字幕表示も出来る。 ベルモンドとビセットのコメディタッチの 傑作ラブストーリー。 内容は星５個だが、盤面が傷だらけだったのでマイナス１。 ただし、視聴には影響無しでした。