The Man with One Red Shoe (1985)

 

I had a memory I appreciated when I was about to watch "The Man with One Red Shoe" (1985), a spy comedy starring Tom Hanks, Lori Singer, and Dabney Coleman. It came to me as clear and vivid as if it happened minutes ago. I was in a video rental store as a youth, looking through the aisles, finding Hanks' face on the cover of the box, with this peculiar look on his face, a sort of a kind smile. I didn't rent it, though, the film stuck to the mind. All these years, since the mid 80s, I just never come across it. HBO was showing it this month, and I was like, "Sure it's been thirty-five years later, but better late than never!" It wasn't too long ago that his comedy with Shelley Long, "The Money Pit" was on late one Friday night. This period of Hanks' career isn't substantially discussed, for the exception of "Big" (1988) and "Splash" (1984). I can now cross "The Man with One Red Shoe" off my 80s list of Hanks' films I hadn't yet watched. But while Hanks certainly is the main draw towards the film, Dabney Coleman's involvement was also definitely something I couldn't pass up. I didn't really pick the VHS box up and investigate the plot synopsis on the back so I might have rented it had I known Coleman was also in the film. Hanks is a talented violinist and composer who happened to have been wearing a red shoe when riding an escalator at an airport, having been spotted by CIA Director, Charles Durning's second in command, played by Edward Herrmann, of "The Lost Boys", to be an unwitting "bait for Coleman's hook". Coleman is eyeing Durning's position, looking to find some extra criminality to expose him. So Durning sends Herrmann off to establish Hanks as a spy working for him, knowing that Coleman has been bugging him and following his every move with his own group of CIA Agents. A coke bust exposing one of Durning's agents has the US government considering removing him as Director. Singer, who is stunning, is a blond bombshell Coleman assigns to seduce Hanks in the hopes of learning of what he knows in regards to Durning, not realizing the man with a red sneaker on is just a violinist and nothing more.

A whole bunch of familiar faces show up in supporting roles such as Carrie Fisher as flutist in the same Philharmonic as Hanks, Jim Belushi as Fisher's husband, a drummer in Philharmonic, and Hanks' good buddy, Gerrit Graham as an agent of Coleman's always on assignment, Tom Noonan as a gunmen who happens to suffer a knock-out drug and removal of teeth, and David Ogden Stiers as the composer of the Philharmonic who nearly has an anxiety attack after Hanks strays from his assigned sheet music.

A subplot has Hanks involved with a very persistent Fisher, an affair behind the back of Belushi. Unfortunately, this affair is played for laughs, including recordings of Fisher and Hanks in the middle of a Tarzan / Jane" fantasy that accidentally gets sounded off from an ambulance, catching the hears of Belushi. Hanks, though, wants to avoid any other hanky-panky with Fisher, instead eventually falling head over heels with Singer--and who wouldn't?--when she is often around because Coleman needs to know what information this guy might have, if there is dirt that would implicate Durning. Meanwhile, Durning, with his sprinklers often going to mask the bugs planted, converses regularly with Herrmann about Coleman's state of affairs. Herrmann, all the credit to him, doesn't want anything to happen to Hanks, certainly not wanting to be responsible for choosing a victim killed because Durning's career was in trouble. Durning sure as fuck didn't care what happened to Hanks. Coleman, also, plans to kill Hanks just as a means of eliminating a "rogue spy"...sort of collateral damage. Singer, not wanting Hanks to come to harm as she develops feelings for him--especially after Hanks is so in love he has a specific piece of music created for her--will risk her own life to save Hanks.

Hanks remains aloof and clueless because he has no reason to suspect he's set up as a spy or of some serious importance to the CIA. That's part of the fun of the film. All these moving parts all around him, with agents working for both Durning/Herrmann and Coleman with Hanks on his bicycle or working on his music, the absurdity of the plot is what drives the film. And the romance is basically a byproduct of the spy hi-jinks, as Singer comes to realize that Hanks is highly unlikely an agent. If just due to his behavior or any real evidence besides Herrmann approaching Hanks in the airport for pictures to be taken. Coleman being run around and fooled, pretty much a foil for Durning (who spends plenty of time completely absent from the ongoing plot); he is constantly questioning what Hanks knows, even though Tom knows zilch/bupkis. 

Tom Hanks is as appealing and likable as you might expect. So much is going on and yet Hanks is oblivious to it all. Two sects of FBI operatives focused on Hanks, and he only learns about all of this at the very end. Singer is the one who has to step in to help Hanks when Coleman prepares to execute him. Belushi happens upon a crime scene in progress, as Noonan is cleaning up a mess inside Hanks' apartment. Even as Hanks is in the apartment with Belushi unable to prove what he saw, a lot is going on out of his line of sight. The whole film keeps everything from Hanks...it's ridiculous, but I found their clever tactics amusing. 2.5/5