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O Escorpião Escarlate
The Scarlet Scorpion
Brazil 1990
produced by Ivan Cardozo, Luiz Gelpi, César Cavalcanti (executive), Maria Da Salete (executive), Luiz Paula Machado (executive) for Topazio Films
directed by Ivan Cardoso
starring Andréa Beltrao, Herson Capri, Nuno Leal Maia, Monique Evans, Susana Matos, Mário Gomes, Isadora Ribeiro, Leo Jaime, Roberta Close, Ivon Cury, Consuelo Leandro, Tiao Macalé, Zezé Macedo, Wilson Grey, Ankito, José Lewgoy, Cláudio Mamberti, Colé Santana, Vanusa Spindler, Christiane Torloni
written by Rubens Francisco Luchetti, music by Júlio Medaglia, Gilberto Santeiro
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Rio de Janeiro, the 1950's: The radio serial Angel, in which a
private investigator - Angel - and his girlfriend, a courageous reporter
called Doris are chasing a hooded villain called the Scarlet Scorpion, is
having the nation in its tight grip, especially Gloria (Andréa Beltrao),
an unsuccessful fashion designer for whom the serial is the only escape
from reality. But for her, the identification with the serial and its
characters goes even further, as she is soon convinced that some real-life
crimes remotely resembling those in the serial were actually committed by
the Scarlet Scorpion himself. She is ridiculed when she tells this
to the police, but her assumption catches the interest of a police
reporter ... and after a real-life attempt is made on the author of Angel
Aguiar's (Herson Capri) life, Gloria becomes a minor celebrity and even
gets a job at the radio station that transmits Angel. There she
meets Aguiar the author, and immediately falls in love with him. Reality
and the fantasy world of the serial soon become intertwined though when
Angel finally confronts the Scarlet Scorpion on radio while the Scarlet
Scorpion comes after Gloria in the real world ... but suffice to say that
everything ends happily, and in both fact and fiction the boy gets the
girl, Angel Doris and Aguiar Gloria. It's easy to spot the
narrative inconsistencies in The Scarlet Scorpion, the plotholes
and leaps of reason, the narrative threads that lead to nowhere and all
that - yet in this film, that's completely besides the point, and I
wouldn't even be surprised if at least ome of the sloppy writing was done
intentional, as above all else the film is an hommage to old-fashioned
pulp fiction, be it in form of radio serials, movies or magazines. Accordingly, a
big portion of the film (the one depicting the radio serial) is made in
the style of old genre movies and movie serials (and was even shot in
black and white), and though throughout the film, the tongue is firmly in
cheek, director Cardoso plays it straight in these scenes. The result is a
simply wonderful, intentionally silly piece of film that's amazingly fresh
despite its nostalgic premise and that's great fun without just making fun
of its subject matter.
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