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Die sieben Männer der Sumuru
The Girl from Rio
La Ciudad sin Hombres / Future Women / Mothers of America / Rio 70
West Germany/Spain/USA 1969
produced by Harry Alan Towers (executive), Tibor Reves (executive) for Terra-Filmkunst, Ada Films, Udastex Films
directed by Jess Franco
starring Shirley Eaton, Richard Wyler, George Sanders, Maria Rohm, Herbert Fleischmann, Marta Reves, Elisa Montés, Walter Rilla, Beni Cardoso, Valentina Godoy, Geraldo José Torres Camargo, Maria de Lourdes, Yuma Duarte, Cornélio dos Santos Farias, Alberto Land, Paulo Leitao, Elídio Nunes, Brunildes Fernandes Queiroz, Edson Freitas Silva
written by Harry Alan Towers (as Peter Welbeck), Franz Eichhorn, Bruno Leder, based on characters created by Sax Rohmer, music by Daniel J. White
Sumuru
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Deep in the jungles of Brazil, Sumuru (Shirley Eaton) has built her
feminist utopia Femina and kidnapped some of the most powerful men and
biggest criminals for ransom, to get her hands on their loot, whatever
else. And now she has kidnapped Rena (Marta Reves), daughter of an
immensely rich banker (Walter Rilla), to receive a record sum of ransom of
course - but the banker instead hires private detective Jeff Sutton
(Richard Wyler) to bring her back, and he figures to find Sumuru's HQ in
the jungle, it's best to stage a heist in Spain, then relocate to Rio with
the money (he has actually returned immediately), as that would attract
Sumuru's attention. And he's right, even if he doesn't notice it at first:
On his first day in Rio, Sutton falls for his manicurist Leslie (Maria
Rohm), who's of course one of Sumuru's spies, and who soon enough sees to
it that he boards a plane to Femina - even if she's kidnapped by the gang
of Masius (George Sanders) in the process, a crime kingpin who of course
wants to get his hands on Sutton's loot as well ... In Femina, Sumuru
first tries to win Sutton over for her cause, even by using her female
charms, but Sutton is too macho to even fathom living under female rule,
so she has him incarcerated. But then, she makes one of her lovers
jealous, and out of jealousy, the lover enables Sutton and Rena's escape -
right into the hands of Masius and company. Once Masius is convinced
though that Sutton's loot is non-existent and the two start talking, they
realize they're on the same side, they just have to attack Femina - even
if for different reasons, Sutton because he's the good guy of the piece,
Masius because he wants to get his hands on Sumuru's gold. But Masius of
course has the necessary army to really defeat her. Ultimately, their
attack is pushed into action when Sumuru manages to kidnap Rena and
Masius's girlfriend (Elisa Montés), and somehow even Sutton is recaptured
- but then, Masius's army attacks ... well, it all ends happily, but
Masius, being a bit of a bad guy, has to die of course. Having
shifted its tone to the more erotic sides of the proceedings and having
been made on a tighter budget, The Girl from Rio is actually an
improvement over its predecessor The
Million Eyes of Sumuru - while the earlier movie was a rather
unfunny Eurospy comedy, this one concentrates more on the comicbook and
camp elements of its material and sleazes things up quite a bit (for its
time) with quite a bit of topless nudity and wonderful costumes that seem
to be made for the sole purpose of a wardrobe malfunction. And Jess Franco
proves himself once more to be a very stylish director who is able to
create a whole futuristic city out of a few architectural anomalities,
makes the trivial interesting by eccentric camerawork, and has a good eye
for using the right colour charts. Add to this his love for pulps combined
with his tongue-in-cheek approach, and you've got ... well, actually not
even one of his better films, but a rather unusual and very sexy piece of
Eurospy cinema.
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