C'est la faute à Rio

A comedy where a middle-aged man has sex with his best friend's teenage daughter would seem morally wrong on so many levels as to violate municipal zoning ordinances. So why my lack of shame in copping to really enjoying this movie?

Watching "Blame It On Rio" back in 1984 when I was 18, the following items appealed to me. 1. Michelle Johnson naked. 2. Michelle Johnson in white pants. 3. Michael Caine's monologues. 4. Caine's chemistry with Joseph Bologna. 5. Michelle in her two-toned bikini.

Watching it now doesn't change what I like so much as in what order. Michelle Johnson is an extraordinarily beautiful woman and an engaging presence when she doesn't have a crying scene, and I think I have grown to appreciate her in other stages of dress, but the person that makes this film work for me now is Caine, whose level of commitment to this film is a thing of wonder.

"Blame It On Rio" is a sex farce which skates around real human feelings with moments of slapstick and sitcom repartee. There are about 150 ways the film can go wrong, but Caine sells it by keeping it light and silly.

Caine's character, Matthew Hollis, is a sympathetic, awkward type whose life gets upended when his wife Karen (Valerie Harper) decides she isn't going with him on vacation to Rio de Janiero. So it's just him, his friend Victor (Bologna), Victor's daughter Jennifer (Johnson), and Matthew's daughter Nicole (Demi Moore.)

Victor rides Matthew about making the most of his new opportunity: "Is tasting life, creating a little magic, is that cheating? You're a long time dead."

Jennifer has her own ideas on what Matthew should be doing, which she unleashes on him at an evening wedding festival at a beach: "Poor Uncle Matthew, he never had a chance."

Her nude scenes still pack a punch, but its the stuff in-between the nude scenes that excite me more now. Caine with anything in his hands, whether it be grating a carrot or brushing his teeth, is joyfully amusing, and his one-liners as revealed "Alfie"-style to the camera are just a lot of fun: "He needed my help...it's like asking an arsonist become the fire chief."

Bologna also makes me laugh, but something else, too. In his own askew, over-emoting way, he's the heart that makes the film work. When he discovers his daughter has been seeing another man, he immediately settles on Matthew - for help finding the culprit. This accounts for the funniest scenes in the film, but it also gives us something to care about. You laugh at Victor's blindness, but you also feel a little between the giggles when he tells Matthew: "You're a rock."

The main problem I have with "Blame It On Rio" is it is not all that sharp in the one-liner department. Co-screenwriter Larry Gelbart was the guy behind "Tootsie" and the best years of the sitcom "M*A*S*H," but he and Charlie Peters don't produce an especially witty script. There are funny lines, but more duds than you'd expect. "I've always had a problem with nudity. Sometimes, when I'm getting undressed, I almost wish I could leave the room, know what I mean?" Matthew asks us at one point. Fortunately, the writing gets much better in the second half, especially in the last twenty minutes when Matthew discovers he's not the only guy keeping a secret.

Celebrated director Stanley Donen makes the most of the natural beauty and native music of his location while keeping everything as light and fizzy as a tropical drink. "Blame It On Rio" may be morally dubious, but it's solid Hollywood fun of the kind Donen delivered for decades and as good a film as any for him to go out on. And thanks to Caine, "Blame It On Rio" still holds up.

It's a travelogue/sex-comedy with great photography of Rio, funny jokes and a pleasing early eighties feel. All the typical aspects of life in Brazil are shown like Carnival, native gods/religion, topless sunbathers, street dancers, the monolith dome with Jesus on top etc. There are a lot of funny lines that will keep you entertained and Michael Caine delivers them well. The soundtrack has a lot of bossa nova strains (composed by Ken Wannberg) and adds to the sexy, lighthearted mood.

Stanley Donen directed many wonderful films from 1949 through the 1960s. But his career became very scattershot after the production code fell, and his big screen career came to a lamentable end with Blame It on Rio (1984). Although he later directed a nice little TV movie for ABC in 1999

The film is billed as a comedy, but its grim. Michael Caine stars as a man in the midst of a midlife crisis who, perhaps under the spell of a trip to sultry Rio, embarks on a brief affair with the nymphet daughter (Michelle Johnson) of his best friend (Joseph Bologna). The actors look embarrassed and stricken (this extends to Valerie Harper and Demi Moore as well), the script isn't funny (no laughs in this film, only one gag that produced a tiny smirk), the photography is flat, and the end result is very dour and unappealing.

But the worst mistake of all in the film is including a luscious black-and-white clip of the wing walking "Rio by the Sea-o" production number from 1933's Flying Down to Rio. The brief scene shows the studio system at its height, with true wonder and fascination. It leaves one lamenting the film around the clip all the more.

There was one major reason to watch this movie: Michelle Johnson, and that's about it. The film doesn't offer too much else. Basically, it's a silly story.

Michael Caine ("Matthew") and Joseph Bologna ("Victor") plays some middle- aged guys who are going through marriage problems (bad marriage and a divorce, respectively) so they go down to Brazil to spend money since they're rich. They bring their late teen/young-adult daughters? Huh? Well, Victor's daughter is a knockout and they have a fling. Johnson plays the girl, "Jennifer," who shows off her breasts as much as she can in this film. This is why I and a lot of other guys saw this movie. In reality, there isn't much merit to this story, regardless.

This must have been a wonderful role for Caine to play! Caine, an outstanding and likable actor, keeps this film - along with Johnson's obvious assets - from being a total bomb. As "Matthew," his mind knows this a bad relationship and vows to end it, but you know what else "doing the talking" for him, so it ain't easy. Demi Moore, by the way, plays Caine's daughter in this movie.

It's really not a horrible film but it's pretty inane and crude in areas. The real shocker might not be all the nudity or sex jokes and lying but who directed the film: good 'ole Stanley Donen, who also gave us "Singin' In The Rain" and "Charade." How in the world did he get involved with this movie? Maybe Johnson was too much of an allure for him, too!

You read a plot synopsis for Blame It on Rio and immediately you think that this just has to be a terrible movie. And besides being terrible it's also going to be downright uncomfortable to watch as the story centers around some wildly inappropriate behavior. They'd never make a movie like this today you think and thank goodness for that. Yes, those would probably be your thoughts before you watch this movie. But then you watch it and it's actually not that bad. Yes there is that uneasy feeling throughout due to the fact that the subject matter is more than a little icky. But the movie is entertaining. It's light-hearted fun. In fact you could even call it charming if not for the fact that there's nothing particularly charming about a middle-aged man having sex with his best friend's teenage daughter.

So our story is about this exceedingly inappropriate relationship. And the movie plays it for laughs. And it works? Ah, the 1980s. A very different world from today that's for sure. Blame It on Rio is never uproariously funny but there are enough good comic moments sprinkled throughout to keep things moving along nicely. In playing Matthew, the man who can't resist the charms of the teenage temptress, it is Michael Caine who really holds the movie together. An awkward character to play no doubt and Caine makes it work. From the moment we meet him, even before his wild fling, Matthew never seems entirely comfortable in his own skin. Preying on that awkwardness is his own personal Lolita. She goes by the name of Jennifer and is played by Michelle Johnson for whom comfort in her own skin was apparently not an issue. Yowzers! Easy to see how it would be difficult for any man to resist her feminine charms. But Matthew, you're forty-something, she's a teenager, and she's your best friend's daughter! This can't happen! But it does and...hilarity ensues? Yeah you wouldn't think this is a particularly comedic situation but that's the direction in which this movie goes and somehow it kind of works.

It's hard to fully embrace the movie as none of the main characters come off particularly well. The Matthew-Jennifer relationship is not the only inappropriate thing going on here, not by a long shot. You'd think Jennifer's father, what with his best friend sleeping with his nubile daughter, would be the sympathetic character. But, as portrayed by Joseph Bologna, he's a sleaze too. Who in this movie isn't? Well, there's Matthew's daughter Nicole. Demi Moore plays the role and it's a smaller part compared to Caine, Johnson and Bologna. But if you sympathize with anyone it's her. She has an innocence about her. All the adults in this movie have lost their innocence long ago. And her friend Jennifer can't wait to lose hers...with Nicole's father no less. Poor Nicole. She even has to suffer in comparison standing next to the voluptuous Jennifer on one of Rio's famous topless beaches. At this point in her life Demi Moore had not yet embraced the wonders of surgical enhancement and that leaves Nicole bashful, trying to cover up her modest assets with her long hair. Jennifer? She's not bashful. But somehow she's still sweet and charming. And there's still a vulnerability and touch of innocence to her even as she's taking off her clothes and seducing a middle-aged man. It's hard to figure. The story shouldn't work, the movie shouldn't work, we really shouldn't be finding any of this funny. But somehow the end result isn't that bad at all. Go into this movie with low expectations and you may well be pleasantly surprised.