Every day, AlloCiné recommends a film to (re)watch on TV. Tonight: a great popular comedy with 3 million admissions.
Are you a fan of Jean-Paul Belmondo? So you can’t miss the broadcast this Sunday evening of the adventure comedy Le Magnifique. Because the film, one of the legendary actor’s very best, is a popular entertainment treat, a great public success with nearly three million spectators in French cinemas. Rhythm, action, humor, a change of scenery, a hell of a dose of madness… What a wonderful cocktail!
– Want another TV tip for tonight? We recommend a great thriller from the 80s validated by Quentin Tarantino!
Released in 1973, The Magnificent, one of the great must-haves of “Bebel”, tells the story of Bob Saint-Clar, a secret agent sent on a mission to Mexico where he will fall under the spell of his contact, the seductive Tatiana. This story is in fact the starting point of the forty-third spy novel by François Merlin, a debt-ridden writer with an apathetic tendency.
Inverted double of this one, the extravagant and virile Saint-Clar lives the adventures and loves dreams of his creator. Indeed, Merlin enjoys transforming people from his daily life into characters from his story, like his pretty neighbor Christine or his odious publisher Charron…
The Magnificent, an irresistible parody of spy films directed by Philippe de Broca and written by Francis Veber, is led by a top-notch Belmondo, more charismatic than ever. Funny, sparkling, seductive, exuberant, twirling, the actor perfectly embodies Bob Saint-Clar, inspired by several colorful characters from the 60s and 70s including James Bond, San Antonio and a certain Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, played by Jean Dujardin in the OSS 117 saga. A Dujardin absolute fan of “Bebel” and Le Magnifique.
“My bedside movie when I was a kid”
“It was my bedside film when I was a kid”told Jean Dujardin on the microphone of our colleagues at BFM TV after the death of Jean-Paul Belmondo in 2021. “When I saw The magnificent at 12 years old, I said to myself “If I have to be an adult later, maybe I want to be like him, like this kind of big child. I’m going to live 80, 90 years, I don’t know, so as much as the crossing is beautiful and we might as well send light like Jean-Paul did.”
Fancy a classic French popular comedy with a luminous Belmondo? So book your second part of the evening quickly to have a… magnificent time!
Tonight on C8 at 11:45 p.m.
False Connection: the blunders and errors of Jean-Paul Belmondo
