When That Man from Rio (1964) (TMFR) was fresh out of the can, the marketing hook touted the film as a Bond spoof. After all, one of the potential villains in TMFR was played by Adolfo Celi, who also played Emilio Largo in the fourth Bond film, Thunderball, which was circulating in theaters in America at about the same time. Today, with a broader range of adventure films with which to compare TMFR, it seems less like either the Bond series or the genuine Bond spoofs, such as the Mike Myers Austin Powers films, and more like the archeological action films that include Spielberg's Indiana Jones series and the emerging Lara Croft films (such as Tomb Raider). The tradition of films pertaining to treasures of lost civilizations goes back at least as far as Fritz Lang's two part adventure, The Spiders ("Die Spinnen") (1919/20).

Historical Background: The director of TMFR, Philippe de Broca, was born in 1933 in Paris. He studied cinematography at the Paris Technical School of Photography and Cinematography and worked initially on a documentary pertaining to Africa. After that, he worked as an assistant to several of the New Wave directors, including Lacombe, Chabrol, and Truffaut. When he began directing himself, people naturally assumed he might follow the inclinations of his New Wave mentors, but he took a different path into offbeat comedies, some glossy and commercial, like That Man from Rio) and others more artsy, such as The King of Hearts (1966). Many of his films starred either Jean-Pierre Cassel or Jean-Paul Belmondo. De Broca established his own production company called Fildebrol, which is managed by his wife. Relatively few of de Broca's films find circulation in America – though the two already mentioned continue to have their followings.

The Story: Pvt. Adrien Dufourquet (Jean-Paul Belmondo) is a recruit in training as an air force pilot. He's got a week of leave and naturally plans to spend it in Paris with his main squeeze, the lovely Agnès Villermosa (Françoise Dorléac). Meanwhile, in a museum in Paris, a daring daytime theft of a priceless South American relic is underway. The relic, the property of Prof. Norbert Catalan (Jean Servais), was one of a trio of such artifacts unearthed by the Prof. and two former friends, one of whom was the murdered father of Agnès and other of whom was a Brazilian, Señor Mario De Castro (Adolfo Celi). When the Professor learns of the robbery, he rushes to the museum and meets with the police. As he's leaving the building, he is abruptly kidnapped.

When our young hero, Dufourquet, arrives at his girlfriend's house, intent on some good times with his gal, the police are questioning Agnès about Catalan and the significance of the relic. Agnès is soon lured outside and kidnapped as well. Dufourquet spots the abduction from a window and is soon in hot pursuit, on a motorcycle. He quickly finds himself at the airport and barely manages to board the same plane as the abductors and his sweetheart, but she is so thoroughly drugged that she cannot corroborate his claims. The plane is on its way to Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil.

The three artifacts, it seems, hold the key to a magnificent Maltec treasure, now buried somewhere in the Amazon. What follows is a series of escapades, as Dufourquet pursues the villain, except, of course, when Dufourquet is being pursued, instead, by the villain's henchmen. There's plenty of action and special effects: a jump from an airplane, a barroom brawl, a pursuit several stories above the pavement on a high rise construction site, speedboats, tarzan-like vine hopping in the jungle, and a general whirlwind of adventure. The film includes a couple to cute plot twists and keeps you guessing, well into the story, which characters are and are not villains. I don't imagine that I'm giving anything away, in this kind of film, if I mention that the good guys win, in the end, and the bad guys lose.

Themes: If films like this have themes, they pretty well elude me. I suppose one obvious conclusion is keep away from obsessed archeology professors. I certainly always keep a safe distance from the Archeology Department at my university.

Production Values: That Man from Rio is a generally good-looking film with magnificent settings, a strong cast in good (but not great) performances, and an entertaining, but rough-edged, script. The dialog is a bit sappy and pedestrian (isn't it always in these films about mythical lost civilizations?). At times the plot comes across as a random series of precarious action situations, any of which could be cut without much impact on the overall storyline. The somewhat hybrid script of TMFR never builds the kind of dramatic tension that one expects from action films of the James Bond or Indiana Jones variety, though TMFR is a bit funnier overall. At the same time, it's not as funny as the original Austin Powers film, but TMFR is more dramatic. How the screenplay for this film managed an Oscar nomination is totally beyond my understanding.

The film's strongest point is its lavish, exotic locales. All of the shooting was done on location, in Paris, in the Brazilian cities of Rio de Janeiro and Brasilia, and in the Amazon. In 1963/4, the cities of Brazil still retained a good deal more of their native color than remains today, after decades of being spoiled by modern hotels and beach resorts for tourists juxtaposed against the outlying slums for the lower class natives. There's an Amazon riverboat scene, another along a scenic coastal highway, and the penultimate scene set in a thick jungle locale. There are some cool props, like a pink jalopy with green stars and a rumble seat! If I could drive around in a rod like that, I'd look cool like Belmondo, too! Or, not!

Then there's the rich variety of characters that typically populate these kinds of films. There's Lola (Simone Renant), the buxom cabaret singer and dive owner who provides the front money for the bad guy. There's Sir Winston (Ubiracy De Oliveira), a native shoeshine boy, who serves as Dufourquet's sidekick for a while and saves his bacon more than once. Then there's the full array of broad-shouldered muscle men in pursuit of our hero. As always, there's the one who doesn't even flinch when you punch him, as hard as you possibly can, in the midriff.

Belmondo is cute and cool and certainly knows how to act. He supposedly did all of his own stunts for this film, which is impressive. He's a rather slight kind of fellow for an action role, reminiscent of Pierce Brosnan in that respect. You get the feeling that he could be squashed like a bug by some of the thugs he encounters. I don't think that the role, here, really brings out the best that Belmondo has to offer. I can't rank it among the best of his performances that I've seen, though I attribute the shortcoming mainly to the limitations of the role rather than his effort with it. You can also see Belmondo in such films as A Bout de Souffle (1959), A Woman is a Woman (1960), Two Women (1960), Pierrot le Fou (1965), Is Paris Burning? (1966), Mississippi Mermaid (1969), and Stavisky (1974).

François Dorléac was the vivacious red-headed sister of Catherine Deneuve and a one-time lover of Truffaut before her tragic death in a car accident at just twenty-five years of age, only about three years after making this film. In TMFR, she is the somewhat ditsy but adorable love interest and woman in constant need of being rescued. She has an annoying habit of repeatedly demanding that Belmondo's character reassure her with the three magic words, even when he is in the most precarious of situations. She brought lots of energy to the part. Some of the best of her work, in a brief career, included parts in The Soft Skin (1964), Polanski's Cul-de-Sac (1966), and (co-starring in her last film with her sister) The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967) (See a cool Review by skbreese).

I enjoy the work of Adolfo Celi. Here, as Señor Mario De Castro, he does a delightful imitation of his performance as Largo in Thunderball (1965), or, more likely, Largo was a reprise of his role in TMFR, since TMFR was finished a year sooner than the Bond film. I actually stopped the film, for a few minutes, to determine if the performer, here, was the same as the one who had played Largo. I was gratified to discover that my association was accurate, but was simultaneously stunned to discover that Celi also played Col. Alexander MacBibenbrook in The King of Hearts (a film I know intimately well), because it had never remotely occurred to me that the man playing that part was the same man who had played Largo. So much for my powers of perception!

Jean Servais, who played Prof. Norbert Catalan in TMFR, is best known for his lead role in the entertaining caper film, Rififi (1954). I think it would also be fair to list the people of Brazil as marvelous supporting cast in this location-rich adventure film.

Bottom-Line: So, there you have it! If you like films such as the Indiana Jones series, you'll enjoy this one as well. The special effects available in 1964 were not up to present day standards or even those of the eighties when the Indiana Jones films were made. Harrison Ford is a better action hero than Belmondo, but Belmondo is the superior comic actor and exudes a cool insouciance that is absolutely peerless. I'd like to give this film 3.5 stars. I'll be generous and give it four, but it's on the weak side of four. This film has its cult of devoted fans but, for me, it was just good, lightweight entertainment. That Man from Rio is in French with easy to read English subtitles and has a running time of 114 minutes.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older