Are there any French movies that don't make France look like a hellhole? I just watched The Tall Blond Man With One Black Shoe, a '70's French comedy.
A violinist becomes a pawn in a power struggle in the French intelligence service. The second in command creates a scandal in hopes of removing his chief of the organization so he can take his place. The chief's assistant randomly picks a violinist returning from a concert in Germany to be a decoy, convincing the second-in-command that he's an agent who will expose his plot to remove the chief. He's picked because his shoes don't match.
The French secret service, it turns out, is full of agents willing to murder one another in order to advance their immediate superior's career. And the chief is perfectly fine with the violinist being killed if it will help him keep his position.
The violinist Perrin (Pierre Richard) has no idea he's being watched. The agents aren't sure if he's a master spy or an idiot.
It was fairly successful in the United States. Today, it might be shown on a movie channel, but back then it was shown on commercial television. It was no art house film. It was remade in 1984 with Tom Hanks. Foreign films had more mainstream success back then than they do now. I think dubbing played a role in it. There are a few other movies I can think of like Cousin Cousine (1975) and Small Change (1976) that were examples. They were shown both dubbed and subtitled on HBO back then and they were treated like any other movie.
With Bernard Blier, Jean Rochefort and Mireille Darc. Directed by Yves Robert.
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