“I loved my character”: the 1985 movie that even Tom Hanks couldn’t save
Tom Hanks has always been a superstar, his fame so large that he doesn’t even seem human. It’s as though he’s been programmed to make commercially successful films time and time again.
While Hanks isn’t currently at the level he once was, he made enough of an impact in Hollywood back in the 1980s and the 1990s to solidify him as an icon forever. As American cinema moved away from its gritty New Hollywood era and pivoted straight into a more accessible blockbuster period, Hanks, being inoffensive, friendly, and possessing a distinctive voice, was Hollywood’s ultimate go-to leading man, and as a result, he won two ‘Best Actor’ Oscars for his efforts.
Despite the fact that he has gotten to play many beloved characters over the years, from Forrest Gump to Woody, Hanks still cherishes characters from movies that didn’t fare so well. Not every movie that he has been a part of has been a success, but he still appreciates the experiences he has gained from filming them, even if people at large don’t care.
One movie from Hanks’ filmography that you’ll never hear anyone calling their favourite is The Man with One Red Shoe, a rather unnecessary remake of the 1972 French movie The Tall Blond Man with One Black Shoe, released in 1985, shortly after Hanks appeared in Splash.
He was on the rise, but he’d not yet starred in the likes of Dragnet or Big, so The Man with One Red Shoe was a bit of an outlier, soon to be forgotten, and it’s probably for the best, as rarely does an American remake of a French movie actually work out.
Despite the bad reviews that the Stan Dragoti-directed movie received, Hanks enjoyed it. “Listen, I loved my character in The Man with One Red Shoe. I thought it was great, that he was totally oblivious to all the craziness around him. Yet the movie went down the tubes,” he told The Los Angeles Times.
In the film, he played a man who gets mistaken for a CIA agent, even though he’s just a concert violinist, with his mundane habits mistaken for expert-level spy tactics, and while it sounds like a narrative with promise, it just doesn’t work.
Hanks really couldn’t care less, though, because soon he was cast in much bigger and better things. Besides, he got to work alongside stars like Lori Singer, Dabney Coleman, and Carrie Fisher, and he enjoyed the comedy, even if audiences didn’t seem to get it, according to him.
“I think sometimes you put all this work into a film, but the actual theme, the thing that makes people out there really care about the movie, gets lost along the way,” he concluded. You can decide for yourself if this was the case for The Man with One Red Shoe, or if it was simply just a bad film.
