That Man from Rio [L’Homme de Rio] *** (1964, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Françoise Dorléac, Jean Servais and Adolfo Celi) – Classic Movie Review 11,557

Director Philippe de Broca’s 1964 French James Bond-type spoof film That Man from Rio [L’Homme de Rio] stars Jean-Paul Belmondo, Françoise Dorléac, Jean Servais and Adolfo Celi.

That Man from Rio is a lively, fast-moving tongue-in-cheek adventure film with a good atmosphere and a delightful Belmondo performance as Private Adrien Dufourquet, the good guy after the bad guys and the treasure.

Pacy handling, sparky action and pretty views – with lovely location photography by Edmond Séchan of Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, and Paris – complete an attractive trend-setting package, though its huge success did not take Belmondo on to success in Hollywood. It was his decision. He was known to be unwilling to appear in English-language films, despite being courted by Hollywood.

Adrien Dufourquet (Jean Paul Belmondo) in Brasília.

It is made by Les Films Ariane and is the first film to be distributed by Les Productions Artistes Associés, the French subsidiary of United Artists, who had a hit on their hands France’s fifth highest earning film of the year with a lot of French people buying tickets: 4,800,626 admissions in France alone.

It is written by Philippe de Broca, Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Ariane Mnouchkine and Daniel Boulanger. It was Oscar nominated for Best Writing, Story and Screenplay. The story was inspired by The Adventures of Tintin comics, and is said to have inspired Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981).

Belmondo liked Tintin comics, sports magazines and detective novels. He said he preferred ‘making adventure films like Rio to the intellectual movies of Alain Renais or Alain Robbe-Grillet’.

It followed Belmondo’s swashbuckler Cartouche.

The future Thunderball Bond villain Adolfo Celi, then resident in Brazil, was cast as Mario de Castro. Italian co-finance and an Italian actor living in Brazil, that was handy.

The cast are Jean-Paul Belmondo as Private Adrien Dufourquet, Françoise Dorléac as Agnès Villermosa, Jean Servais as the Professor 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 the shoeshine Sir Winston, Sabu do Brasil, and Peter Fernandez

Adieu Jean-Paul Belmondo (9 April 1933 – 6 September 2021), RIP. His best known films include Breathless (1960), That Man from Rio (1964), and Pierrot le Fou (1965).

Derek Winnert 2021 Classic Movie Review 11,557

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