''The Man with One Red Shoe'' is a 1985 American

comedy film A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending ( black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the o ...

directed by Stan Dragoti and starring

Tom Hanks Thomas Jeffrey Hanks (born July 9, 1956) is an American actor and filmmaker. Known for both his comedic and dramatic roles, he is one of the most popular and recognizable film stars worldwide, and is regarded as an American cultural icon. Ha ...

and

Dabney Coleman Dabney Wharton Coleman (born January 3, 1932) is an American actor. Coleman's best known films include ''9 to 5'' (1980), '' On Golden Pond'' (1981), ''Tootsie'' (1982), '' WarGames'' (1983), '' Cloak & Dagger'' (1984), ''The Beverly Hillbillies ...

. It is a remake of the 1972 French film ''

The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe ''The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe'' (french: Le Grand Blond avec une chaussure noire) is a 1972 French spy comedy film directed by Yves Robert and written by Robert and Francis Veber, starring Pierre Richard, Bernard Blier, Jean Rochefort ...

'' starring

Pierre Richard Pierre Richard (born Pierre-Richard Maurice Charles Léopold Defays; 16 August 1934) is a French actor, film director and screenwriter, best known for the roles of a clumsy daydreamer in comedy films. Pierre Richard is considered by many, such as ...

and Mireille Darc.

Plot

An agent of the United States

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...

is arrested in

Morocco Morocco (),, ) officially the Kingdom of Morocco, is the westernmost country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It overlooks the Mediterranean Sea to the north and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and has land borders with Algeria to A ...

on drug-smuggling charges. The person behind the smuggling operation is CIA deputy director Burton Cooper, who hopes the resulting scandal will lead to the resignation of CIA Director Ross, and Cooper's promotion to Director. Ross is aware of Cooper's complicity, but when questioned by a special Senate committee about the arrest, Ross tells the committee that he has not reviewed all of the facts of the case. The committee orders a full inquiry and gives Ross 48 hours to present with the proper answers. Ross devises a plan for Cooper's downfall. Knowing his house has been bugged for sound by Cooper, he purposely leaks a rumor that a man will be arriving at the airport who will clear him of the scandal, and orders his assistant Brown to pick him up. Cooper, desperate to find out who the mystery man is, sends his own agents to follow Brown, who goes to the airport with instructions to pick someone at random from the crowd, leading Cooper and his team on a wild goose chase. Brown spots a man wearing mismatched shoes descending an escalator and picks him as their random target. The man is concert violinist Richard Drew, whose percussionist friend Morris played a trick on him by hiding one of each pair of his shoes, forcing Richard to wear one business shoe and one red sneaker on his flight home. Cooper takes the bait and starts tracking him. Richard is completely oblivious to the intelligence operations centered on him, consumed by his own personal problems. He had a fling with Morris's flutist wife Paula, who plays in the same

symphony orchestra An orchestra (; ) is a large instrumental ensemble typical of classical music, which combines instruments from different families. There are typically four main sections of instruments: * bowed string instruments, such as the violin, viola, c ...

as the two men; it was brought on by Morris's immaturity and obsession with playing practical jokes on people, Richard being one of them. After eluding them at the airport, Richard is bumped into by Maddy, one of Cooper's operatives, who steals his wallet. After damaging his tooth with a bag of gag peanuts given to him by Morris, Richard heads home to prepare for a visit to the dentist. While talking on the phone with Morris, Cooper (who has tapped his phone) hears that they are to meet with the Senators. Cooper thinks it is an inquiry with the Senate, but it turns out to be the name of the orchestral

softball Softball is a game similar to baseball played with a larger ball on a smaller field. Softball is played competitively at club levels, the college level, and the professional level. The game was first created in 1887 in Chicago by George Hanc ...

team for which Richard and Morris play. While Richard heads to the dentist, Cooper sends his agents out to continue their surveillance, first by having Maddy lead a team to search his apartment for any information and bug it for sound, then by having other agents intercept him at his dentist's office, believing his tooth has microfilm inside. They learn Richard has traveled the world, including several

communist Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, ...

countries. Cooper thinks this is the perfect cover for a spy and starts digging deeper. Soon, they suspect his sheet music is actually a code, and use

Department of Defense Department of Defence or Department of Defense may refer to: Current departments of defence * Department of Defence (Australia) * Department of National Defence (Canada) * Department of Defence (Ireland) * Department of National Defense (Philipp ...

computers to decipher it. Hoping to learn more, he sends Maddy to seduce Richard and find out what he knows. While Richard is playing a violin composition he wrote for her, Maddy genuinely falls for him. Meanwhile, Morris catches glimpses of the operations of Cooper's agents, leading him to believe he may be going mad. Ross, meanwhile, simply sits back and watches the antics unfold. Brown is concerned that Richard (the innocent man that he selected at random) may end up being killed as a result of Ross's plan to draw out Cooper, but Ross is only concerned about his career and dismisses Brown's guilty conscience. When one attempt after another fails to yield any usable information, Cooper orders Richard killed and eventually attempts to kill him himself. Richard remains completely oblivious to the plot until Maddy intervenes to save him from Cooper, and testifies in front of the Senate about the plot. Cooper is arrested, Ross is demoted, and Brown becomes Director of the CIA. Morris is committed to a mental institution and Paula calls off her romantic pursuit of Richard, deciding that her husband needs her. Maddy agrees to testify against Cooper in exchange for her freedom, after which she reunites with Richard.

Cast

as Richard Drew *

as Burton Cooper *

Lori Singer Lori Singer (born November 6, 1957) is an American actress and musician. The daughter of conductor Jacques Singer, she was born in Corpus Christi, Texas, and raised in Portland, Oregon, where her father served as the lead conductor of the Oreg ...

as Maddy *

Charles Durning Charles Edward Durning (February 28, 1923 – December 24, 2012) was an American actor who appeared in over 200 movies, television shows and plays.Schudel, Matt (December 26, 2012) "''In real life and on the screen, he played countless role ...

as Ross *

Carrie Fisher Carrie Frances Fisher (October 21, 1956 – December 27, 2016) was an American actress and writer. She played Princess Leia in the ''Star Wars'' films (1977–1983). She reprised the role in'' Star Wars: The Force Awakens'' (2015), ''The Last ...

as Paula *

Jim Belushi James Adam Belushi (; born June 15, 1954) is an American actor. He is best known for the role of Jim on the sitcom '' According to Jim'' (2001–2009). His other television roles include '' Saturday Night Live'' (1983–1985), '' Total Security' ...

as Morris *

Edward Herrmann Edward Kirk Herrmann (July 21, 1943 – December 31, 2014) was an American actor, director, and writer. He was perhaps best known for his portrayals of Franklin D. Roosevelt in both the miniseries ''Eleanor and Franklin'' (1976) and 1982 film ...

as Brown *

David Ogden Stiers David Allen Ogden Stiers ( ; October 31, 1942 – March 3, 2018) was an American actor and conductor. He appeared in numerous productions on Broadway, and originated the role of Feldman in '' The Magic Show'', in which he appeared for fou ...

as Orchestra Conductor *Irving Metzman as Virdon *

Tom Noonan Tom Noonan (born April 12, 1951) is an American actor, director, and screenwriter, best known for his roles as Francis Dolarhyde in '' Manhunter'' (1986), Frankenstein's Monster in ''The Monster Squad'' (1987), Cain in '' RoboCop 2'' (1990), T ...

as Reese *

Gerrit Graham Gerrit Graham (born November 27, 1949) is an American stage, television, and film actor as well as a scriptwriter and songwriter. He is best known for his appearances in multiple films by Brian De Palma as well as appearances in two '' Star Trek' ...

as Carson *

David L. Lander David L. Lander (born David Leonard Landau, June 22, 1947 – December 4, 2020) was an American actor, comedian, musician, and baseball scout. He was best known for his portrayal of Andrew "Squiggy" Squiggman in the ABC sitcom ''Laverne & Shirl ...

as Stemple *

Art LaFleur Art LaFleur (September 9, 1943 – November 17, 2021) was an American character actor and acting coach. Life and career LaFleur was born in Gary, Indiana. He played football in 1962 as a redshirt at the University of Kentucky under Coach Charl ...

as CIA Agent

Release

The film was considered a

box office disappointment A box-office bomb, or box-office disaster, is a film that is unprofitable or considered highly unsuccessful during its theatrical run. Although any film for which the production, marketing, and distribution costs combined exceed the revenue after ...

. Released by

20th Century Fox 20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Disn ...

in July 1985, it debuted at no.7 at the box office its opening weekend and grossed just $8,645,411 over its short theatrical run.

Reception

On the

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, the film has a 47% approval rating based on 15 reviews, with an average rating of 4.7/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 31 out of 100, based on 9 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews."

References

External links