Le Magnifique (1973)

One of Belmondo's better movies from the Seventies.  At first glance it looks like a sequel to L'Homme de Rio, the spoofy espionage flick he had made a decade earlier (with the same director), but Le Magnifique goes one step further: Belmondo not only plays the superspy, but also the author who created him, turning the movie into a *spoof of a spoof*.  

Belmondo is François Merlin, a social pariah who has written 42 pulp novels about a super hero called Bob St. Clair. François has modeled Bob after himself, but in his fantasy world Bob is of course everything his creator is not: he's the epitome of courage and charm, an infallible action hero and a lady killer. François can't pay his bills and is madly in love with his neighbor, Christine, a sociology student (played by Jacqueline Bisset!), who has no eyes for him. In the novels Christine has become Tatiana, Bob's lover and side-kick ...

Veering between François's fantasy world and his everyday life, the film not only parodies the espionage genre à la James Bond, but also Belmondo's own screen persona. The script is a bit of a mishmash, which is no wonder if you know its genesis: It was co-written by director de Broca and Francis Veber (best known for comedies like La Chèvre and Les Compères, both starring Gérard Depardieu and Pierre Richard), but the two couldn't agree on some aspects of the story (most of them related to Jacqueline Bisset's character) and eventually a script doctor was hired to finish the job (*1). Some of the gory jokes may look tasteless today, but they were meant to poke fun at the blood-spattered cinema à la Peckinpah that was very popular in those days. Overall Le Magnifique is quite funny, occasionally even touching. And Jolie Jacqueline is pure eye candy.

⭐⭐⭐

Note:

* (1) According to some sources Italian actor Vittorio Caprioli also contributed to the final script. To avoid any possible legal action by one of the people concerned, nobody - not even De Broca and Veber - was credited for his work.

1973 - Dir: Philippe De Broca - Cast: Jean-Paul Belmondo (François/Bob St. Clair), Jacqueline Bisset (Christine/Tatiana), Vittorio Caprioli (Charron/Karpof), Jean Lefèbvre, Hubert Deschamps, Hans Meyer - Music: Claude Bolling