A Mulher do Rio

The Girl From Rio AKA Future Women is precisely the sort of loopy nonsense that we cult movie fans find absolutely fascinating: it has an outlandish espionage plot, born of the feminist movement yet still managing to exploit women at every turn; it stars familiar performers Shirley Eaton (Goldfinger) and George Sanders (All About Eve) camping it up like there's no tomorrow; there's crazy kitsch 60s fashion a go-go; and director Jess Franco (R.I.P.) ensures that the film is imbued with a strangeness and technical ineptitude of the kind guaranteed to keep his loyal followers happy, despite the whole affair being far more light-hearted than many of his other movies.

Eaton stars as lesbian megalomaniac Sunanda who is hell-bent on dominating the world with the help of her all-woman army of men-haters (which in itself should be more than enough to pique most trash movie fans' interest). Building a vast fortune by kidnapping the world's wealthiest people, the power-hungry women's libber has built her own city, Femina, from which she plans to launch her attack on mankind.

Sunanda's latest target is playboy Jeff Sutton (Richard Wyler), who is rumoured to be carrying $10million cash with him in his briefcase; also interested in the money is Sunanda's rival, Rio crime boss Masius (Sanders). In reality there is no money, the briefcase being used as bait to reel in Sunanda, Jeff having been hired to locate missing heiress Ulla (Marta Reves) who he believes is being held captive in Femina.

With this three-way of Sunanda, Masius and Sutton established, all Franco is left to do is pad out his movie to feature length with assorted nonsense, which includes gangsters in creepy masks, lots of Rio carnival padding (including a one-legged reveller busting moves in the street), some torture via Sunanda's craptastic microwave ray, Eaton wearing a lacy body stocking, hilarious dialogue ('Don't be nasty—daddy doesn't like it'), more leggy totty than you can shake a stick at, and several silly showdowns, Jeff narrowly escaping on most occasions thanks to his incredible martial arts skills (a karate chop here, a judo throw there) or his trusty pistol (for use only when his chopping hand is feeling sore). When he's not kicking bad guy butt, Jeff's weapon of choice is his irresistible charm, with which he lures women—even dedicated man-haters—into bed with ease (thus allowing Franco to easily meet his quota of female nudity).

Ultimately, Femina is stormed by Jeff and Masius, who form an alliance to ensure continuing male superiority, their assault on the city resulting in a barrage of badly edited fake gunfire and an amateurish assault of unconvincing stock footage explosions. In a suitably silly final scene, Sunanda is shown to have survived the attack, despite having supposedly blown herself up with a self-destruct device inside her gold vault.

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.

Since I recently watched Mario Bava's Danger Diabolik, I had an urge to see some other, lesser known spy movies. This is Jess Franco's attempt at the genre and he almost pulls it off. If it weren't for some lapses in action (and logic) this one would have been very good. But far too often, nothing much of interest is going on. In a typical James Bond movie, there are many instances where the action stops to further the plot. In The Girl from Rio, these stops in the action do nothing to advance the story. They are just there.

Franco probably had one of the bigger "name" casts in The Girl from Rio that he ever worked with. Shirley Eaton, from Goldfinger, is the villainous Sumuru. George Sanders, who I always get a kick out of watching, is very funny as the equally villainous Sir Masius. The biggest problem with the casting is Richard Wyler as the films hero. He's not interesting enough to carry the part.

Having watched a few Franco movies over the past few years, The Girl from Rio is decidedly tame. While the movie has its moments, the usual Franco sleaze is not evident. Too bad - it might have made some of the non-action moments more tolerable.

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.

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)