I had trouble following the finer details of this film’s plot, and not simply because I tend tune out during musical moments. I counted three (maybe four or more) separate instances where exposition is given through letters with cursive that resembled calligraphy and made it difficult to read.  Subsequently, I am left without the finer bits of context.  It is a cinematic crouch to continually dump exposition on the viewer through letters.

In regards to the film’s gender politics, female agency is in peril. Certainly the whole idea of an arranged marriage threatens female agency, while it is usually depicted as benefiting the man.  While Julio claims that he will allow things to run their course in Rio, and let Belinha choose who she chooses, Belinha’s allegiance ultimately lies with her family.  She has a line in which she says, “musn’t we always please our fathers”  and therefore she will ultimately pick Julio as her husband. There is a scene where Belinha denies meeting with Julio, but she is then rebuked by her mother for doing so.

During the films climax, where the musical and aviation performance begins at the hotel’s opening, there was a moment where just before they begin to play their unwrapped instruments, the conductor asks, “are you ready boys?” and then it struck me, every musical performer was hilariously a man. All the women are up in the sky, chained to the planes.  A comic moment follows where Ginger Rogers is left chained to the plan while Julio runs off.  Julio is the only man up flying with the women, but he himself has become emasculated.  Sure he is made out to be gentlemanly, he states, “Her (Belinha) happiness is my happiness” but this is just after he catches Belinha kissing Roger.  So he may be able to marry Belinha, but he will never really have her love.  Instead, he gives up Belinha to Roger, like a commodity being traded.

On a side note, this musical romance comedy reminded me of Renoir’s romance comedy, The Rules of the Game. Both feature an event which brings two men together who share the same lover, and rather than fight for her, they agree to, “let things run their course.”  Both films also feature a voyeuristic  binocular moment.

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In Le Magnifique (Philippe de Broca, 1973) François Merlin, played by Belmondo, is an author who lives vicariously through his routinely published short espionage stories.  His stories suave protagonist, Bob Sinclair, is everything Merlin is not, but desires to be.  Where Merlin is timid and passive, Bob is brash and masculine.  Where Bob is a seducer, Merlin is inept.  Where Bob can make the effortless jump into a parked car in slow motion, Merlin fumbles.   The film slips back and forth between Bob’s fantasy and Merlin’s reality.  The irony is that while Bob Sinclair is an icon widely known, Merlin is almost a nobody.

Merlin is treated much like his short novels, which are enjoyed quickly and then discarded. His son from a divorced marriage visits him for a quick bite and some cash, then hastily departs like the electrician and plumber.

Most of the fantasy portion of the film follows Bob in Mexico, and while a crisis is repeatedly alluded to, we never see much in the way of an actual mission. Instead, Mexico is merely an exotic backdrop for Bob to clash with his arch nemise, the Albanian secret services leader Karpov, who is also Merlin’s editor. They repeatedly face off leaving a wake of destruction.  In their final showdown, after the comic rape scene of Tatiana, who is modeled after Merlin’s crush, Christine, the two face off in a busy city street.  Walking towards each other like a scene from a western, they embrace and begin to dance.  An abused and confused Tatiana stares and the two incredulously.  This change of character on the part of Bob and dismissal of Tatiana is a manifestation of Merlin’s feelings of betrayal after discovering Christine’s party which includes his editor Pierre Charron.

I do not see Le Magnifique as a problematic film in terms of representations of race. The whole film has a light hearted, not to be taken seriously tone to it.  It was this light hearted, comedic tone, which struck me as incongruous with the repeated rape of Tatiana.