Le Magnifique - I am the greatest
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Le Magnifique - I am the greatest |
| Original title | Le Magnifique |
| Country of production | France , Italy |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 1973 |
| length | 94 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Philippe de Broca |
| script |
Francis Veber , Jean-Paul Rappeneau , Philippe de Broca |
| production |
Georges Dancigers , Alexandre Mnouchkine |
| music | Claude Bolling |
| camera | René Mathelin |
| cut | Henri Lanoë |
| occupation | |
| |
Le Magnifique - I am the greatest (Original title: Le Magnifique ) is a French - Italian action film comedy from 1973. Directed by Philippe de Broca , Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jacqueline Bisset played the leading roles.
action
The extremely turbulent plot of the film takes place on two levels, in a real world and in a fantasy world that constantly overlap.
Paris : François Merlin lives in a dreary Parisian apartment, where he invents stories for junk notebooks day in and day out. His publisher, Georges Charron, is a true slave driver. While Merlin writes the everyday frustration off his mind with his absurd stories, he regularly slips into the role of his novel hero Bob Saint-Clair when diving into this parallel universe . His alter ego is a French pocket-sized James Bond and the absolute opposite of Merlin: a smart winner and womanizer, who succeeds in everything and who with a casual attitude and a smile on his face kills almost every opponent with the left. Reality and daydreaming become more and more blurred, and Merlin's opponents in real life reappear in a strange form in his fantasy world. But unlike in Merlin's life, they have nothing to laugh about in his stories.
- Mexico : In Merlin's novel world, a shark has just eaten an agent in a phone booth. A case for the French super agent Bob Saint-Clair, the most skilled spy in the world. His boss sends him to the Central American country, where his lovely colleague Tatiana is already waiting for him. On the beach both are attacked, so to speak, to warm up, by a whole horde of enemy agents who do the dirty work for the nasty Albanian Colonel Karpov, arch enemy of the free world. Between the change of fire, a cleaning lady runs with a vacuum cleaner over the sandy beach and does her work there.
Paris : François feels interrupted by the sucking cleaning lady because she is reality. She bustles through his Paris apartment and disturbs him tremendously in the creative process of writing. Annoyed, Merlin hacks his words into his rickety typewriter. To make matters worse, the doorbell rings and an electrician enters. He is supposed to make repairs to the apartment that are due, but he cannot be used until the plumber has done his job. Where's the damn plumber? Merlin asks angrily, trying to focus on his story again.
- Mexico : Bob Saint-Clair has it easier: the electrician is annoying? Bob kills him without further ado. Then the super agent is overwhelmed by the overwhelming force of enemy agents and dragged together with Tatiana into a waiting helicopter. Suddenly Bob has language problems ...
Paris : ... because of the letter “R”, because it always jumps out. Merlin's typewriter is slowly giving up; for better or worse, the novelist has to buy a new one. When he leaves the house, he meets his pretty neighbor, an Englishwoman who is studying abroad in Paris. The young woman bears a striking resemblance to Tatiana. No wonder, because Merlin is in love with her, so super agent Bob logically has his eye on Tatiana too. The new machine has been bought, but now Merlin's wallet is also empty. He asks his publisher Charron for a small advance payment, but he brusquely refuses and instead urges Merlin on, because his text, which is to be delivered soon, should definitely be included in the next issue. No wonder that publisher Charron bears astonishing resemblance to the diabolical Albanian Colonel Karpov ...
- Mexico : ... and he now receives Bob and Tatiana flying in by helicopter - as his personal prisoners. Karpov is also not afraid of torture in order to extract the desired information from Bob. He is about to cut off one of Tatiana's breasts when a young man enters the scene.
Paris : It is Merlin's son who has arranged to meet his father for breakfast. Both look out of the window and see the pretty neighbor down there ...
- Mexico : ... who as Tatiana is currently in great danger. But Bob, the superhero, kills all his opponents in a bloody slaughter. At the last minute, he and Tatiana manage to escape the villains.
Paris : François Merlin is interrupted in his creative urge by the plumbers who have finally arrived. But they can't do anything, because the electrician would have had to do his preparatory work and leave again. Then the neighbor appears and again asks about the plumbers, because they should have repaired something on her too. Merlin does everything for the Englishwoman, and so he runs after the craftsmen to get her back, but they are already up and away. Meanwhile, out of boredom, the student is leafing through one of Merlin's book stories. Before she leaves, she takes one of his works with her.
- Mexico : Meanwhile, Bob and Tatiana get closer on their escape. They fly over the pyramids of the Aztecs when the two of them grate licorice together for the first time ...
Paris : The student reads Merlin's agent story with great interest, which she let go. The robber pistol is called “ Red Panic in Alaska ”, and again, of course, the invincible Bob Saint-Clair is at the center of the excitement ...
- Alaska : ... who is just paddling along a torrent in a canoe.
Paris : The Englishwoman read through the story of the French novel hero in one go and is now borrowing other Merlin effusions, with the promise to tell him what she thinks afterwards. Her interest in François gives the author wings, and he writes and writes like a man possessed, ideas just gushing out of him.
- Mexico : Bob and Tatiana received a call from Bob's boss that fell into the hands of his enemies.
Paris : At that moment, Merlin's neighbor comes over, officially introduces herself to him as Christine and explains to him that she is in the process of writing her doctoral thesis in sociology on the same superhero penned by Merlin, Bob Saint-Clair. Merlin is now completely clear why so many traits of Christine can be found in Tatiana.
- Mexico : Time for Bob to finally seduce Tatiana ...
Paris : ... and time for François to do the same with Christine. But she gently rejects him with the words that after all he is not Bob Saint-Clair. When she leaves, François is angry and sullenly goes back to his work. His mood also has consequences for super agent Bob, who now finds himself in increasingly abstruse situations. The perceived humiliation of François Merlin ...
- Mexico : ... now Bob Saint-Clair has to endure too. With each of his actions, Bob, who is descending from super agent to loser, only makes himself look ridiculous.
Paris : Christine also wants to get information about Merlin's publishers for her dissertation. He welcomes her with open arms and shows interest in the pretty, young foreigner beyond the purely professional dimension.
- Mexico : Bob has not given up yet and is returning to his old strength. With his sexual potency, he finally convinces Tatiana what a whole guy he is. And gradually it seems to melt away ...
Paris : ... like Christine, who reads that she shows herself turned on by Bob's masculinity.
- Mexico : Meanwhile, archenemy Karpov strikes back. He set a trap for Bob, and Bob makes a monkey of himself again.
Paris : Even its nasty Parisian counterpart does not give up, because Charron continues to strive for Christine's favor. Merlin's cleaning lady believes that the author has gone wrong with the course of his story and advises him to ask Christine for advice if necessary. Merlin realizes that his superhero should do more justice to his role instead of making a fool of himself. Of course, this also applies to his spiritus rector , him, François. Meanwhile, Charron and his friends unabashedly invited themselves to Christine. Merlin, who watches them arrive from the window, is quite angry about this.
- Mexico : The anger over Charron's audacity to possibly relax “his” Christine is reflected in Bob Saint-Clair's adventure. The villain Karpov has empowered Tatianas and raped her. American soldiers suddenly rush up and free the violated innocence. The time has come for Bob to settle accounts with Karpov. But what happens? Bob and Karpov both admit their love for Tatiana and decide to go on a bike ride that seals the reconciliation. Tatiana sees the two men disappear in a daze.
Paris : Fantasy and reality finally come together: François and Christine confess their love to each other, and Charron looks rather stupid from the laundry. The final chapter about the super agent Bob Saint-Clair will probably never be written, because Merlin takes his manuscript and throws it in a high arc out of the window of his apartment.
Production notes
Le Magnifique - I am the greatest , later re-titled Belmondo - The Devil Guy (or The Devil Guy - I Am the Greatest ), was created in Paris and Mexico (at Playa las Gemelas and Los Arcos, both near Puerto Vallarta ). The film premiered on November 23, 1973 in France and opened on April 12, 1974 in Germany. The film structures were designed by François de Lamothe .
Reviews
“This new Philippe de Broca film is not only amusing, it also has bits of subdued poetry. It begins as a super agent film that takes all common industry clichés to extremes. It takes a while before you realize that this story springs from the tortured brain of an author who is bound by publishing agreements and has been tortured by the typewriter. He is the opposite of his novel hero: divorced, uptight, frightened, full of financial worries, completely devoid of glamor. He projects his dreams into his stories. De Broca has mastered how to combine this dream world, dominated by Superman and his sex lady, with the drab and yet so much more humane and lovable everyday world of the author. One laughs at the cheeky film and society parody and is also moved by the tender melt of the real love story of the film. Glorious as poet and agent Jean Paul Belmondo, enchanting the beautiful Jacqueline Bisset: super agent and sociology student with inner life. A film to watch. "
“De Broca's best work was created with Jean-Paul Belmondo as the main actor, whom the director was able to stage more lively and humorous than anyone else. Cinematic pranks like Cartouche, the Bandit , The Great Adventures of Monsieur L. or Le Magnifique - I am the greatest were the best examples of easily digestible, lively summer cinema, in which de Broca kept the balance between tension, action and comedy with a sure hand. "
"From the juxtaposition of the fantasy world and everyday reality, a fast-paced and gag-riddled agent film parody develops, which is largely content with the mere stringing together of comical scenes."
“Jean-Paul Belmondo in the footsteps of James Thurbers Walter Mitty . In de Broca's imaginatively playful comedy, he is a frustrated colportage author who escapes from his shabby everyday life into opulent dreams. "
“Philippe De Broca's talent began to melt away in the mid-1960s. (…) Mr. De Broca's Le Magnifique … is not uncomfortable, but does not have a lot of anything. (…) There is a lot of not too funny overlap between the author's dreary problems in rainy Paris and the spy's extraordinary adventures in sunlit Acapulco, and since this scenery is very pretty, the Acapulco shots are more fun. At this point it is simply impossible to parody the work of Ian Fleming with true enthusiasm, as demonstrated here by Mr De Broca. The real fun you get out of 'Le Magnifique' depends entirely on how far you get along with this kind of humor. "
synchronization
| role | actor | Voice actor |
|---|---|---|
| François Merlin / Bob Saint-Clair | Jean-Paul Belmondo | Klaus Kindler |
| Christine / Tatiana | Jacqueline Bisset | Helga Trümper |
| Karpov / Charron | Vittorio Caprioli | Hans Korte |
| Colonel Collins | Hans Meyer | Michael Cramer |
| electrician | Jean Lefebvre | Erich Ebert |
| General Pontaubert | Raymond Gérôme | Paul Bürks |
| Madame Berger | Monique Tarbès | Monika John |
Web links
- Le Magnifique - I am the greatest in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The devil. In: prisma.de. prisma-Verlag , accessed on September 19, 2017 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Release certificate for Le Magnifique - I am the greatest . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF; February 2016; test number: 46 428 V).
- ↑ Le Magnifique - I am the greatest. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 6, 2015 .
- ↑ Le Magnifique . In: The New York Times , July 8, 1976.
- ↑ Le Magnifique - I am the greatest. In: synchronkartei.de. German dubbing file , accessed on March 2, 2017 .