Die sieben Männer der Sumuru

As I live in Rio de Janeiro I was curious to see this film. The other reason I picked up this film was that it was directed by Jess Franco (I had already seen "Vampyros Lesbos", "She killed in ecstasy" and "Sadomania"). These films are what I would call porn trash - they tell stories that offer us luscious images of female flesh, lesbianism, mild violence and really entertain us. "Vampyros Lesbos", in particular, is a psychedelic sound and visual trip, featuring the gorgeous Soledad Miranda, present also in "She killed in ecstasy". Jess Franco has a sophisticated visual style of his own.

But "The Girl from Rio"(called also "The Seven Secrets of Sumuru) is absolutely amateurish. It tells no story at all. Its plot is a mixture of science-fiction, spy-thriller and soft porn trash. There is the detective, a mixture of James Bond and Flint (the main character?) always wearing flashy suits and carrying a suitcase containing 10 million dollars, there are the girls from Femina, a city located somewhere near Rio that intend to conquer the world and enslave the men, and there is a gang run by George Sanders. The 10 million dollars is what they are all fighting for. There are of course lots of girls.

Many fights, so badly done that people fall before they are hit. Femina was filmed inside and around the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio. The gang run by George Sanders is composed by 5 people! There's a scene in which they run after the hero(?) wearing fantasy masks and after a ridiculous fist fight, he knocks them out and runs away. Incredible! Not to mention the "apocalyptic final battle" among the hero, the female warriors of Femina and the Gang of Five.

"The Girl from Rio" belongs to the category "so bad that it's good". I had my fun all right! By todays standards this film can't even be considered porn and the violence is mild.

If you see this film, do it the same way you would watch an Ed Wood movie and you'll have your fun. This film was made in such an easy-going way that if you let yourself flow with it, you will have a smile on your face when it ends.

Girl from Rio, The (1969)

** (out of 4)

Coming from the same era as his FuManchu pictures, this European spy-caper comes from Jess Franco and actually is fairly decent as long as you don't expect too much from it. In the film, which is basically a take-off on Mario Bava's DANGER: DIABOLIK, former Bond girl Shirley Eaton plays Sumitra, the leader of a female gang who plan on taking over the world by turning all the men into their slaves. The girl gang must try and fight a couple evil men (one played by George Sanders) who plan to try and stop them. There's no question that this isn't a very good film but at the same time it's actually better than you might expect it to be. The biggest problem is with the screenplay that really doesn't offer up anything overly original or entertaining as the film's pacing is always at a stop-go motion that ends up killing the film. We get a lot of funky visuals as there's no question this is one of those psychedelic pictures that I'm sure many potheads might enjoy. You've got a pretty good soundtrack, some decent cinematography and it's good to see some familiar names showing up. Sanders was certainly slumping at this point of his career but he manages to be mildly entertaining here. Eaton also manages to turn in a decent performance and it really does appear as she's into everything going on and having a good time playing pretty much a female James Bond. She's certainly chomping away at the dialogue and appears to be having a blast. I think those unfamiliar with the work of Jess Franco might find themselves enjoying this because they're not really sure what they would normally be seeing from the director. Franco worked a few films into this genre but I'm personally not a fan of any of them so in the end this is a decent effort but there's just not enough soul here for me. I prefer his 70s output, which featured more bizarre and poetic films.

There are certain scenes in this film (like the hero's first meeting with super-villainess Shirley Eaton) where it seems to be on the edge of breaking sexual taboos and doing its premise (females want to rule the world by making men slaves) justice, but it never dares to. The result is a film with no sexuality and some tame violence. Despite the choppy plot, the film is not overly bad until its climax, where its amateurishness runs rampant (terrible editing, overuse of stock footage). Worth seeing only as a curio. (*1/2)

The clever marketeer is he is, Jess Franco naturally also cashed in on the huge temporarily success of psychedelic spy movies like Mario Bava's ultimately sensational "Danger: Diabolik!". Franco is the ideal man to shoot a similar film, as he could freely insert as much sleaze, kitschy scenery and absurdly grotesque plot twists as he wanted to. And he partially understood this very well, as "The Girl from Rio" revolves on a man-hating organization, led by a funky dressed lesbo, that plots to turn all men into obedient slaves! Unfortunately (for them, at least), the diabolical plans conflict with the daily business of a feared crime syndicate boss, played by George Sanders. All the right ingredients are well-presented, yet this is a surprisingly weak and unsatisfying adventure movie. The plot is rich on imagination, but seemingly only on paper, as the action is quite tame. The film is also very colorful...but not too bright and especially shocking was the total lack of vicious sex. There's a bit of nudity, sure, but too few according to normal Franco standards. All the characters are sick in the head, so the least I expected (or hoped for) were more perverted undertones or frenzied themes. Franco obviously had a bigger budget as usual to work with, and I must say he spends that money well on more convincing set pieces and talented cast members. Particularly the veteran actor George Sanders ("Village of the Damned", "Psychomania") is one of the best players ever to appear in a Franco production. Too bad even he can't save "The Girl from Rio" from being a huge letdown. A legendary Euro-smut filmmaker like Jess Franco could and should have done more with this concept. Shame, shame, shame...

Shirley Eaton repeats her role as the villainess from the earlier "The Million Eyes of Su Muru". Except that here she's referred to as "Sunanda", while being listed in the end credits as "Sumitra", and basically playing the role of the Sax Rohmer character "Su Muru". All right. Now that that nonsense is out of the way, Sunanda abducts Jeff Sutton (Richard Wyler, who gives a flat performance), a playboy on the run. She's got her eye on the $10 million with which he absconded, yet so does Masius (ever wonderful George Sanders), a genial crime kingpin in Rio. He's prepared to mobilize underworld forces against her and her city of "Femina", which is inhabited only by Sunandas' women warriors.

The directing reins are handed over to Euro-cult favourite Jess Franco, but fans of the filmmaker may find this rough going for a while. At first, it often gets dull and plodding. But it does eventually improve somewhat, leading to a colourful finale. There's enough to take in to make the trip worth taking: plenty of eye candy (of both the feminine and scenic variety), an effectively exotic setting, a dynamic music score by Daniel White (and catchy theme song), a fun sense of costume design, and some enjoyable acting.

Eaton once again looks like she's enjoying the part of the feminist baddie, in what turned out to be her final role in a motion picture. Wyler is rather insipid, but Maria Rohm, Marta Reves, Elisa Montes, and Beni Cardoso are all enticing as the various women with which he interacts. Herbert Fleischmann is fine as a dapper henchman named Carl. But, other than Eaton, it's Sanders who's the most fun. He plays an antagonist who doodles on a tablecloth when bored, and who doesn't seem to have much of a stomach for violence. (He turns away when his underlings are roughing people up.)

Not exactly one of Francos' best, but it's all fairly pleasant to watch anyway. Those who favour his output of the 1970s will note that it's not as sleazy as some of those films. All in all, it's decent cheesy espionage fare.

Six out of 10.