That Man from Rio
That Man from Rio | |
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Les Productions Artistes Associés United Artists | |
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Running time | 110 minutes |
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Language | French |
That Man from Rio (
This fast-moving spoof of James Bond-type films features striking location photography by Edmond Séchan of Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, and Paris. At the 37th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.
The film is directly inspired by the comics of Belgian cartoonist Hergé, featuring a number of scenes that are direct retelling of plot points in "The Adventures of Tin Tin."
Plot
Adrien tells the pilot that his fiancée has been abducted, but Agnès has been drugged and does not recognize him. The pilot plans to have Adrien arrested when they reach Rio de Janeiro, but Adrien eludes the police upon arrival. With the help of Sir Winston, a Brazilian
In a stolen car provided by Sir Winston, Agnès and Adrien drive to
At a party in their honor, De Castro takes Catalan to his strong room to assure him of the statuette's safety, and Catalan, who planned the museum theft, murders him and steals the statuette. By the time Adrien discovers the body, Catalan and the Indians have abducted Agnès again and escaped in a seaplane. Adrien steals a plane and follows.
In a floating jungle cafe run by Lola, the woman who financed Catalan, Adrien learns that Catalan murdered Agnès' father and that Agnès is being held in a boat. Rushing to the boat, Adrien hangs onto the side as it heads upstream and finally docks. While Catalan goes to the underground location of the treasure, Adrien knocks out all of Catalan's accomplices and rescues Agnès. Catalan finds the treasure, but an explosion set off by a nearby Trans-Amazonian Highway construction crew causes him to be buried with it. Adrien and Agnès flee the jungle and arrive in Paris in time for Adrien to catch his train back to his garrison.
Cast
- Jean-Paul Belmondo as Pvt. Adrien Dufourquet
- Françoise Dorléac as Agnès Villermosa
- Jean Servais as the Prof. Norbert Catalan
- Adolfo Celi as Mario de Castro
- Simone Renant as Lola
- Roger Dumas as Lebel, Dufourquet's buddy
- Daniel Ceccaldi as Police inspector
- Milton Ribeiro as Tupac
- Ubiracy de Oliveira as Sir Winston the shoeshine
- Sabu do Brasil
- Peter Fernandez
- Annik Malvil as Airplane Hostess
Production
The film was a follow-up to Cartouche, a popular swashbuckler with Belmondo. It was decided that he should star in a James Bond spoof. Italian financing of the film led to the Italian actor Adolfo Celi, then resident in Brazil, being cast as Mario de Castro.[3]
Jean-Paul Belmondo's personal tastes were Tintin comics, sports magazines, and detective novels. He said he preferred "making adventure films like Rio to the intellectual movies of Alain Resnais or Alain Robbe-Grillet."[4]
Release
That Man from Rio was released in France on 28 February 1964.[5]
Reception
Awards
The film was nominated for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards.[6]
Critical
In contemporary reviews, the
Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic called That Man from Rio "a delightful film".[8]
In a retrospective review, The Dissolve gave the film a rating of three and a half stars out of five, noting that "the action moves along at such a rapid clip, there’s little time to worry about how much the plot relies on incredible coincidences".[6]
Time Out selected the movie as #99 for its list of the 100 greatest French films.[9]
Influence
Film scholar Cédric Pérolini has argued that the film may be seen as a "missing link" between The Adventures of Tintin comic by Hergé and Spielberg's Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.[10] Author Dominique Maricq has stated that "Spielberg even declared having watched it [That Man from Rio] nine times! Did he not know that, to construct his scenario, the Frenchman had himself largely drawn from the boxes and bubbles of the Adventures of Tintin series?"[11] All three pieces of media contain a number of very similar scenes and plot points. For example, at one point in The Man from Rio, Catalan steals a car while it is being repaired, an event that appears in both Tintin in the Land of the Soviets and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.[10]
References
- ^ "L'Homme de Rio". Unifrance.org. Retrieved August 18, 2023.
- ^ "L\'Homme de Rio (1964) - JPBox-Office".
- ^ "That Man from Rio box office information". Box Office Story. Retrieved 24 August 2016.
- ^ Barry, Joseph (21 June 1964). "THAT MAN' BELMONDO ON A MOVIE MERRY-GO-ROUND". New York Times. p. X7.
- ^ "L'Homme de Rio (1963) Philippe de Broca" (in French). Bifi.fr. Retrieved 7 May 2018.
- ^ a b Clark, Craig J. (June 29, 2015). "That Man From Rio Up to His Ears". The Dissolve. Archived from the original on July 8, 2015. Retrieved July 7, 2015.
- ^ Monthly Film Bulletin. Vol. 32, no. 372. London: British Film Institute. 1965. p. 87.
- ^ Kauffmann, Stanley (1966). A world on Film. Delta Books. p. 236.
- ^ "That Man From Rio (1964) | Film review". Time Out London. 19 March 2012. Retrieved 2019-09-03.
- ^ a b Pérolini, Cédric (2021), "Le Secret de la Licorne : de Hergé à Spielberg", Tintin aujourd'hui, Tintin aujourd'hui, GEORG, pp. 371–387, retrieved 2024-01-05
- ISBN 1847960707.
External links
- L'Homme de Rio at IMDb
- That Man from Rio[permanent dead link] at Le Film Guide
- That Man From Rio at AllMovie
- That Man from Rio at TCMDB
- Review of film at New York Times