Rio

1939 was a busy year for Basil Rathbone and sandwiched between 'Adventures of Sherlock Holmes' and 'Tower of London' is this bizarre opus in which he is utterly riveting as Reynard, a sociopathic swindler in true Stavisky mode.

His wife is played by the appealing Sigrid Gurie, promoted by Sam Goldwyn as 'The Siren of the Fjords' but actually born in Brooklyn. Her lover is Robert Cummings and Victor McLaglen is Reynard's henchman, whose devotion borders on the homoerotic. There is some feeble comic relief from Billy Gilbert and Leo Carillo and a few instantly forgettable songs.

A film that begins well but fails alas to live up to its promise and is redeemed by Hal Mohr's cinematography. It remains a must however for Rathbone devotees and is of interest as a taster for director John Brahm's stylish noirs of the following decade.

In Rio, Basil Rathbone is Paul Reynard, a wealthy man seeking a loan from several banks. Actually, it transpires that he has given them all a lot of fraudulent bonds as collateral.

On his anniversary, he's arrested and shipped to Devil's Island. He makes his sidekick Dirk (Victor McLaglen) promise to keep an eye on his lovely wife Irene (Sigrid Gurie). Broke, Irene returns to her career of singing.

She then meets Bill Gregory (Robert Cummings), an engineer who was involved in a bridge that collapsed due to faulty materials - not his fault, but he is blamed. The two fall in love, although she stays loyal to her husband.

Reynard, however, escapes. There the trouble begins.

This is an odd, dark film, with some excellent performances. There are some good scenes - Reynard escaping through the swamp, Rio at Carnivale, and the nightclub scenes.

Not as good as the director's (John Brahm) other films, but recommended for fans of Rathbone and for the performances and atmosphere.

A bleak and dark drama of a swindler who moves from the pinnacles of fortune in Paris down to misery in a chain gang in the swamps of a Brazilian penal colony, from where he escapes in desperate longing for his wife, whom he knows is in Rio as a celebrated night club singer - she already was in Paris, and she probably moved to Rio just to be closer to him, in case he would escape, but the film never tells this, although it should have informed the audience of the obvious. In Rio, though, she is courted by an alcoholic former piano tuner who turned engineer and failed with a great project, so he took to drinking. There are some very funny scenes with him. He falls desperately in love with her, but then Basil Rathbone succeeds in escaping and finds her again - too late, it seems, for everything. It is difficult to classify this semi-noir of great and exotic adventure, but it definitely is interesting, and they could have made much more of it. Basil Rathbone is excellent, as always, and so is Victor McLaglen, while Sigrid Gurie only makes you long for Marlene Dietrich, who would have made a part like this so much better.

Basil Rathbone is a very wealthy man, until it turns out he isn't; there's a lot of fraud, so he winds up going to Devil's Island. His wife, singer Sigrid Gurie, is kept in thrall, with sidekick Victor McLaglen keeping an eye on her. But drunk Robert Cummings falls in love with her and she with him. She's still loyal to Rathbone, so Cummings goes far away and reforms. Meanwhile, Rathbone learns of the incipient affair, and escapes from Devi's Island, and heads to where Miss Gurie is performing, and Cummings -- in a pencil-thin mustache -- is hoping.

Rathbone is magnetic as the scheming dirtbag, sharp and sardonic and manipulative. Miss Gurie sings three sings, and Cummings plays his role adequately. McLaglen is very god, and there are some nice bits by Billy Gilbert, Leo Carillo, and Irving Pichel.

John Brahm's Rio is often cited as an early (1939) precursor of what would become, a few years later, film noir. But it doesn't have a great deal going for it, though Brahm later did creditable work in the cycle (The Brasher Doubloon, Hangover Square, The Locket). Basil Rathbone, best known of course as Sherlock Holmes, puts aside his deerstalker's cap and meerschaum pipe to portray a swindling international financier who, along with his songstress wife (Sigrid Gurie, whoever she was), seem to be the toast of le tout Paris. Alas, he's arrested and sent to rot in one of those French-colonial penal colonies off the coast of South America (which probably never existed but is conveniently close to Rio de Janeiro). His wife sticks by him for some reason and journeys to Brazil, though she's sorely tempted by Robert Cummings as an engineer fallen into hard times and the bottle. Rathbone, meanwhile, murderously escapes to Rio.... The plotline lacks tension and, save for Rathbone's Sten-gun elocution, there's not much acting to savor either -- though Gurie sings a few songs in decadent nightclub settings. Some viewers might be happy to hear them.