Review of The Man with One Red Shoe (1985) by Edith N — 02 Apr 2012

Based on a French Movie I Never Saw.

You know, I figure most of the people who are younger than I am don't realize that Tom Hanks used to be very funny indeed. I'm not entirely sure you'd know it from this movie, though Graham likes it quite a lot, but up until about the mid-'90s, Tom Hanks was generally a comedic actor who was capable of occasional dramatic moments. I mean, he was at the point he made this really best known for [i]Bosom Buddies[/i], a TV show where he pretended to be a woman for housing. (People my age know exactly what I'm talking about and are wondering why I'm bothering to explain it.) But now, he seems to be largely a dramatic actor who does occasional moments of comedy. Heck, even when he voices a cartoon cowboy, it's more dramatic than the average cartoon. And don't get me wrong; he's good. He's a very talented man. But I think good comedy is hard, too, and I'd like to see him do a good comedy again, even if it doesn't have Meg Ryan in it.

Here, he is Richard Drew, concert violinist. Ross (Charles Dunning) of the CIA is under investigation because of goings-on in Morocco. Those goings-on were organized by Cooper (Dabney Coleman), who wants his job. As part of a diversionary tactic, Ross sends Brown (Edward Herrmann) to pick a random person at the airport and have him followed, because that will get Cooper's men to follow him and distract him from . . . you know what? It doesn't matter. Richard doesn't know what's going on. Large amounts of the time, neither did I. At any rate, Richard's life was already confused by the fact that he was having an affair with flautist Paula (Carrie Fisher), who is married to percussionist Morris (Jim Belushi). And now, there is Maddy (Lori Singer), who is trying to pump him for information for Cooper. Because, all evidence to the contrary, Cooper and his agents really do think that Richard is a spy, and they're trying to find out what he knows.

What he doesn't know, at least not as much as the movie wants us to believe, is music. There are quite a few little jarring bits in the movie which show that the research wasn't done. For one thing, someone says that it's possible to change what you're playing just enough so that you can send a message but not enough so that anyone else would notice. This is simply not true. Not even a little. Of course, it doesn't end up mattering, because he plays something so conspicuously not what he's supposed to be playing that he should have gotten fired. Not only that, but the only percussion instruments in the back of the orchestra seems to be tympani, and it's explicitly shown at one point that it's all Morris plays. (It's what it says on the back of his jersey.) Which is just not possible; anyone who plays percussion in an orchestra plays anything they need played. The movie would have been a lot better off without the whole orchestral subplot and certainly without the affair thing.

Strange to think that, at the time, Carrie Fisher was the biggest name of the lot. This was just after [i]Return of the Jedi[/i]. What's more, in 1985, she was about as close to A-list as this movie was going to get. She was maybe B-list, and everyone else was lower. Most of the others have never attained those heights. Jim Belushi has always been second best to his dead brother. Edward Herrmann has done a lot of things, many even worth watching, but hardly anyone ever remembers his name. (The fact that I do is obviously irrelevant!) Charles Durning has been in over a hundred movies and nearly as many TV shows, some quite prominent, but has never risen above Hey, It's That Guy status. Dabney Coleman is . . . well, Dabney Coleman. And the way I remember Lori Singer is that she used to be on [i]VR5[/i], and how many of you have ever even heard of [i]VR5[/i]? This is a great deal like a whole lot of other mid-range comedies, but it's worth noting now because it starred Tom Hanks, who became huge.

Oh, it was funny enough, I guess. I haven't ever seen [i]The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe[/i] to compare it with, but I also kind of don't care. For some reason, the French movies that get American remakes are comedies. (See also [i]Three Men and a Baby[/i] and [i]The Birdcage[/i].) Which is odd, if you think about it, because the French are supposedly notorious for having a different sense of humour from every other nation on Earth. You think French comedy, and you think, "They like Jerry Lewis," right? There's probably a film school paper in it for someone. In a way, though, this is the kind of movie Hitchcock might have made if he had made more comedies. [i]Pure[/i] comedies; after all, he could be very funny. However, this is taking Hitchcock's great fear of the Wrongly Accused Man and making a comedy of sorts out of it. I can see how a few tweaks might have made it much funnier, but we've also seen how it can be very scary indeed.