The Girl From Rio — The Girl From Rio( UHD & Blu Ray)

The Girl From Rio is a groovy ‘n’ campy action sci-fi romp from prolific Euro cult director Jess Franco. The film brings together a female supervillain who wants to take over the world, a sleek playboy with ten million $’s in a suitcase, and a suave/ ageing gangster. The late 1960s film finds the director at the more mainstream & less fleshy/ perverse end of his large filmography. Here from  Blue Underground is a recent dual disc  UHD & Blu-Ray release of the film- taking in a new 4k scan of the picture, a commentary track, and a few other extras.

The Girl From Rio( aka Die sieben Männer der Sumuru, Mothers of America, Rio 70, The Seven Secrets of Sumuru) is from 1969. It was a joint West German, Spanish, US and UK production. It found Franco joining forces with infamous exploitation director Harry Alan Towers- with other late '60s/ early 70’s notable titles the pair collaborated on being 99 Women, Venus In Furs, and The Bloody Judge. The film was based on a story by pulp writer Sax Rohmer- who is most known for his Fu Manchu books.

The film opens with trippy/ groovy pre-credits with vaguely S&M undertones. As a group of women stand over a man on a round & raised plinth, which is shrouded in dry ice & darted by coloured lights. Some of the women are pressing down on his throat, as others caress him. We then shift to sunshiny beach shot credits of Rio I’m presuming.

As we get into the film we meet our leading man Jeff Sutton(Richard Stapley) a rather dead-eyed, vapid and looking like an-action-man-doll come-to-live character. He checks into one of Cities best hotels- ordering a haircut & manicure in his room.  He fairly soon beds Lesley(Maria Rohm), the manicurist, and we find out he’s carrying a suitcase full of money.

In the meantime we dart back & forth to our other two lead characters & their locations- there’s Sumitra(Shirley Eaton) a switching between blond & brunette supervillain, whose established Femina- a city populated by women, and has plans on taking over mankind with her feminine army. And Masius(George Sanders) a well-spoken British gangster, with grease-backed grey hair & penchant for having partly dressed women sit on in his lap. He’s set up in a plush apartment with a pool looking out over the city.

As the film unfolds both Sumitra and Masius try to get hold of Jeff & his case fall of money. We get hand-to-hand combat with smartly suited & masked henchmen, who travel around in a gold four-posted bed frame van. There are see-through prison cells pumped with slowly mind-numbing gases. Female soldiers dressed in red caps, and boots & barely covering their breasts collars. 

The film is soundtracked with a largely mellow & bright mix of samba, and easy-listening jazz/ lounge, and it even has its own female-sung groovy-soulful theme song. Acting wise Stapley is a rather bland & overtly smug hero- with no depth to him. Eaton hams it up well enough as the female supervillain, though I’d say the most memorable Sanders as the cocktail mixing, longing about, and looking away when his henchmen beat folk up gangster. 

The Girl From Rio is ok enough for what it is- but there is really little depth to the story & its unfolding- with a fair bit of padding put into push the runtime up- like overly long beach sunsets, characters taking longer than they should get to places, and a big clunk of Rio carnival. But then again I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of Franco when he’s in his more groove & camp 60’s setting- prefer more his drives into the dreamy & darkly perverse, his troubling psychosexual dramas, or his cheesy Euro horrors.

 

Moving onto this recent two-disc set, and there is no doubt about it the 4K scan looks lovely- really bold colours with all-round crystal clear definition. On the extras side, we get a few neat new things- first, we get a commentary track from respected film historians/ track pros Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth- this is as usual is excellent. They start off by discussing the pre-credits which very much nod towards what Franco would do with 1969’s Venus In Furs. They talk about how there are several different versions of the film- with at least a German, Spanish, and English version- each with slight differences. They chat about how George Sanders is the best thing in the film- adding an edge of sardonic humour, and comment on the terrible wig Rohm is wearing.  They point out Franco's small cameo in the film- as he turns up as a guitar player with his head down. We find out the it was shot in February 1968- with the director finishing it before it was due- so he & Towers started work on the WIP classic 99 Women (1969). They discuss the Fu Manchu films that Towers & Franco worked on, and debate quite who the film to hand was aimed at- due to its mix of family adventure elements/ nudity. Later on, they touch on how Franco never focused on gore, and the films to hand more fleshy moments.  And Of course much more- another gold standard track from these two.

Next, we have Rocking in Rio( 40.35) which finds Franco expert/ author Stephen Thrower giving his normal thoughtful & totally fascinating look at the film.  He starts off by telling us this was the second of seven films that Franco & Towers collaborated on. He talks about how this was initially meant to be a sequel to any early Towers-produced film The Million Eyes of Sumuru(1967) directed by Lindsay Shonteff- though in the film to hand the lead character is named Sumitra/ other contradictions. He talks about the acting from each of the key cast, and we find out that Sanders killed himself a few years later claiming he was bored with life.  He chats about Sax Rohmer’s Sumuru novels, the different versions of the film & more. Again a must-watch. We get a Rifftrax version of the film- which runs at seventy-eight minutes. As well as a few additional scenes from the German version.

On the archive side of things, we get around fourteen minutes of interviews with Franco, Towers, and lead actress Shirley Eaton from the early 2000’s. There’s a trim reel, and a Poster and still Gallery.  With the release coming in a neat card slip- which makes the film look a lot more impressive/action-packed than the film really is.

It’s certainly wonderful to see Blue Underground releasing more of Franco's back catalogue- and on the extras/ presentation/ scan side of things, this is once again another splendid release from the label. The film itself is for those who enjoy the more groove side of the director's output, and it certainly sits at the lesser end of this type of thing.