That Man from Rio

South by Southwest

After a French woman (Françoise Dorléac.) is kidnapped due to her knowledge of a valuable tribal statue, her beau on leave from the military (Jean-Paul Belmondo) relentlessly pursues her from Paris to Rio de Janeiro to Brasília to the Amazon River and the deep jungles nearby. Jean Servais plays a Parisian professor while Adolfo Celi is on hand as a wealthy industrialist in Brasília.

A French-Italian production with subtitles, “That Man from Rio” (1964) is an amusing globetrotting adventure inspired by the Franco-Belgian comics The Adventures of Tintin and intended to be a semi-spoof of flicks like “North by Northwest” (1959), the first two James Bond movies (1962-63) and “Secret of the Incas” (1954). Imagine “North by Northwest” mixed with the fun tone of an Elvis flick minus the songs and you’d have a good idea of this flick.

The scenic globetrotting makes the film, especially the scenes in Brasília, the planned capital city of Brazil with its modernist architecture, which was still under construction when this was shot. Another highlight is the constant entertaining chase sequences.

It influenced the tone of the 70s & early 80’s Bond movies, which added amusing touches to 007’s globetrotting escapades. It also influenced Spielberg’s “Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981). While entertaining enough, the characters are mostly shallow and uninteresting. Any of the Roger Moore Bond movies is all-around more compelling and rewarding. But this came first and deserves credit.

The film runs 1 hours, 50 minutes, and was shot on location in the places cited above.

GRADE: B/B-