The second of nine films made by director Jess Franco and writer-producer Harry Alan Towers over the course of only two years, The Girl from Rio is their jazzy, featherweight riff on the spy-fi genre, a heady blend of international intrigue and semi-science-fictional elements, popular (especially in Europe) in the wake of the James Bond films. It’s also a sequel of sorts to Towers’s earlier film The Million Eyes of Sumuru, directed by Lindsay Shonteff, based on the exploits of the Sax Rohmer super-villainess. Though in this film, for some inexplicable reason, the character is regularly referred to as Sunanda (obviously and not very convincingly dubbed in post) and listed in the credits as Sumitra. Blame it on Rio!
Like many a Franco film, The Girl from Rio opens with a protracted erotic dance routine: Clad only in a webbed body stocking, Yana (Beni Cardoso) does her number for a recumbent man, before adding a little Thanatos to the Eros by slicing his throat with her razor-sharp nails. The scene effectively sets the mood for the film to come. Its wafer-thin plot follows alleged criminal Jeff Sutton (Richard Wyler), who arrives in Rio with 10 million stolen dollars and is soon caught in the middle of a test of wills between mob boss Masius (George Sanders) and criminal mastermind Sumuru (Shirley Eaton) that plays out at their respective headquarters.
Whereas Masius goes in for lounging by his rooftop pool with his “accountant” Irene (Elisa Montés), Sumuru prefers sashaying around her own private city of Femina, which is otherwise inhabited only by her bizarrely costumed all-female cadres. Femina turns out to be a set designer’s fever dream: all Brutalist architecture on the outside, with wildly geometric modernist interiors, including plastic cage-filled torture chambers. Masius only wants Sutton’s millions, but Sumuru has her eyes set a bit higher: world domination of the Bond-villain sort, replete with the utter subjugation of the male of the species.
When it comes to murder, though, Sumuru proves to be equal opportunity, killing not only those despicable males, but also women who don’t live up to her code of conduct. She’s a tyrant, even a bit of a fascist: It’s not for nothing that her subordinate Yana dresses up like an SS officer for the film’s climactic Carnival scenes. The Girl from Rio also goes in for some lightweight torture (including a hilarious bit involving a portable fan) and even a few flashes of the S&M that would be ramped up in later Towers and Franco collaborations, particularly their two Marquis de Sade adaptations, Justine and Eugenie… The Story of Her Journey into Perversion.
Though Sumuru lives to fight another day, the film has Sutton helicoptering off with three willing and eager female companions, the male triumphant and amply rewarded. But you get the sense at times that Franco feels a bit conflicted about the film’s unrepentantly chauvinist sexual politics. Other films he made without Towers, like Female Vampire and A Virgin Among the Living Dead, tend to focus on the feminine, often much to the disadvantage of the typically clueless, hapless male characters. Here Franco seems a lot more comfortable shooting scenes like the opening dance routine and one equally drawn out, jazz-fueled party scene, neither of which add much by way of plot development but supply a surplus of mood and texture.
Pure catnip for Euro-cult aficionados, The Girl from Rio is best enjoyed for bountiful surface pleasures like the outrageous costumes and set design. Of course, the Rio locations are pure value added, especially the wonderfully vibrant Carnival scenes. It’s also aided immeasurably by Manuel Merino’s colorful pop-art-inflected cinematography and a nimble score by Daniel White’s that oscillates between groovy lounge music and ominous electronic bleeps and chirps. And let’s not forget Sanders’s superb comic turn, especially the scene where his Masius cackles over a Popeye comic while his henchmen conduct a little water torture. While The Girl from Rio doesn’t constitute the best of the Franco and Towers films (that would be Venus in Furs, hands down), it’s nevertheless a striking audiovisual experience.
Image/Sound
The 4K restoration of The Girl from Rio, sourced from an uncensored camera negative, looks truly spectacular. The UHD transfer reveals a dramatic increase in the saturation of the bold comic strip colors, as well as deeper blacks, and a noticeable increase in sharpness and depth. Audio comes in an English Master Audio mono mix that’s sturdy and clean, capably conveying the wild bossa nova-inflected score from regular Franco composer Daniel White.
Extras
Blue Underground offers an engaging selection of bonus materials. The new audio commentary from critics Troy Howarth and Nathaniel Thompson proves to be another compelling listen from the redoubtable duo, chockfull of information about the production history, the cast and crew, and the film’s place not only in the series of films Jess Franco made with writer-producer Harry Alan Towers, but also within Franco’s wider body of work.
In the archival featurette “Rolling in Rio” Towers discusses the production schedule (and shooting part of a second film during a weeklong lull), actress Shirley Eaton expresses discomfort in a rather mild (for Franco) lesbian scene where a double was clearly employed, and Franco describes his working relationships with Eaton and George Sanders (lamenting Sanders’s suicide several years later), and also relates an amusing anecdote about Alfred Hitchcock’s meeting with some French New Wave filmmakers.
In the complementarily titled “Rocking in Rio,” Stephen Thrower, the author of two books on Franco’s work, delves into the origins of the Sumuru character in Sax Rohmer’s work, explores underlying tensions in the collaborations between Franco and Towers, outlines several alternate cuts of the film, and examines its paradoxical approach to themes of female empowerment. Also included are a trim reel of silent odds and ends, and about 10 minutes’ worth of footage from the German cut of the film that help clarify plot and character motivation. For those inclined toward their brand of movie mockery, there’s a RiffTrax edition, featuring MST3K albums Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, and Kevin Murphy, of a 78-minute cut of The Girl from Rio.
Overall
Jess Franco’s jazzy comic-strip riff on the spy-fi genre gets a superlative UHD transfer and a roster of delectable bonus materials.
Score:
Cast: Shirley Eaton, Richard Wyler, George Sanders, Maria Rohm, Herbert Fleischmann, Marta Reves, Elisa Montés, Beni Cardoso, Valentina Godoy Director: Jess Franco Screenwriter: Harry Alan Towers Distributor: Blue Underground Running Time: 94 min Rating: NR Year: 1969 Release Date: September 26, 2023 Buy: Video
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