BOB THE MAGNIFICENT

A film inspired by Philippe de Broca's feature film starring Jean-Paul Belmondo. François Morin is a journalist but specializes in the "news in brief" column. In a fix, he agrees to write the summer serial, taking his inspiration from a true story. His hero, Bob Saint Clar, a natural-born Valentino and a cold-blooded adventurer, manages to incriminate a rich industrialist. Reality and fiction mingle. The man who inspires the character of the industrialist has problems following the publication of the serial. He decides to get revenge by attacking François. Synopsis : François Morin, a discreet journalist working on a provincial daily paper, is nearing forty. He's a dreamer who loves the quiet life, his wife, his children and literature. He is happy with his relatively uninteresting and poorly paid job because it gives him the time to finish his first novel that he has been fine-tuning for the last eleven years. But the patience of his family is wearing thin. Sick of having to take charge of so many things, his wife, Christine, leaves home with their two children, Chouchou and Toinou to move in with her brother. Christine is courted by Alexandre, her ambitious boss and former schoolmate, and almost succumbs to this man who is the very opposite of her husband. François ends up sharing his home with his mother-in-law who comes to spend a few days. Lucette also criticizes hers son-in-law's lack of ambition and urges him to get a real job. Finally, Bob, François' imaginary companion since childhood, attempts to motivate him. François is forced to react! When Diane, a photographer with the paper, tells him that their serial writer is leaving, François decides to persuade the boss to let him fill in. Moreau gives him a break: he has two days to write the first episode of the thriller serial. Helped by Vanessa, the researcher, his unconditional admirer, as well as Lucette, a big thriller fan, François takes the plunge. Bob becomes Bob Saint Clar, a seductive private detective, hired by a certain Christina to investigate the possible murder of her sister, Adèle Fayolle. Her husband, Jacques Fayolle, is the most likely suspect. Christina (Christine's double) has compromising documents on the "dealings" of the industrialist Fayolle that her sister had handed on to her just before dying. Bob Saint Clar and Christina soon find themselves hounded by the killers... The serial is accepted and François is hailed by the staff. But Moreau receives a phone call from Dansart, the newspaper's main shareholder, who has just lost his wife in an "accident". Like Adèle Fayolle, she apparently drowned in her swimming pool after taking barbiturates… Dansart doesn't find the joke funny and demands that the rest of the serial follow a different line. François obeys orders and invents a tale full of poisonous snakes and drug-traffickers to get away from reality. Diane, intoxicated by François' success, tries to seduce him. He asks her out to dinner and, at the restaurant, finds himself face to face with his wife and Alexandre. Christine, furious, causes a scene and runs off after telling him that she doesn't appreciate his serial and that she isn't really convinced of his so-called literary talent. François, depressed, returns home, while Diane and Alexandre get acquainted... The next day, Moreau summons François again to tell him that Dansart wants to stop the serial: apparently, there are further coincidences between fiction and reality. François justifies himself: the serial is the pure product of his imagination. Moreau trusts him and decides to continue publishing it. With Lucette, François gets down to work. They are interrupted by the arrival of Antoine, Dansart's nephew, who threatens them and demands that François write a different ending. François obeys: Christina becomes the guilty party and the whole thing is faxed off to the paper. Antoine flees with Lucette and François' children whom he takes hostage. François and Christine, reunited by these events, set off after them and attempt to neutralize Antoine. In vain: the Morin family finds itself imprisoned in the cellar of Dansart's house. That's where Christine tells François that she has never stopped loving him and that she plans to do all she can to enable him to write in peace: she has realized that her husband has a talent for literature by reading the copy of his first novel that he kept hidden and that Lucette had sent to her without telling him. Bob intervenes and suggests escaping through the cellar window. Toinou manages to slip between the bars and sets off to get help. He meets the police who have been alerted by the babysitter who was worried about the disappearance of Christine and the children. The police have worked out the link with the newspaper and gone round to Dansart's place. While Antoine is arrested, the police tail Dansart in his car. He has just enough time to read the end of the serial and kills himself like Fayolle. François' first novel is published, Diane and Alexandre's marriage is imminent and the whole Morin family is about to take a well-earned holiday. Before leaving, François tells Bob about his new literary project: the story of a 19th century monk who was fascinated by nature and ended up a great chef. Bob immediately turns into this character.