That Night in Rio **** (1941, Alice Faye, Don Ameche, Carmen Miranda) – Classic Movie Review 8579

Director Irving Cummings’s deliciously bright and campy 1941 musical That Night in Rio stars the formidable trio of Don Ameche, Alice Faye and Carmen Miranda. As the tagline tells us, it is filmed in gorgeous Technicolor. It is the sixth and final teaming of the deservedly extremely popular Don Ameche and Alice Faye.

Ameche plays both an entertainer/ impersonator at a Rio nightspot, Larry Martin, and a rich count, the Baron Manuel Duarte. The latter’s wife, the Baroness Cecilia Duarte (Faye), gets the former, Larry Martin, to impersonate her husband the Baron for business reasons, but then Larry Martin (Ameche) falls for her.

That Night in Rio is the usual 20th Century Fox wartime escapist fluff, but with just a flash of added inspiration and the appeal of extremely amiable performances, including Miranda as the impersonator’s fiery, hot-tempered gal who sings infectiously daft songs like ‘Chica, Chica Boom Chic’ and ’I Yi Yi Yi Yi Yi I Like You Very Much’). Ameche sings ‘Boa Noite’ and ‘They Met in Rio’.

Heading the sweet cast, Faye is extremely likeable, Ameche shines in the twin roles, and Miranda is a delight. Spearheaded by these three performances, That Night in Rio is great infectious fun.

The screenplay by George Seaton, Bess Meredyth, Hal Long, Samuel Hoffenstein and Jessie Ernst is a remake of the Maurice Chevalier 1935 French film Folies Bergère [L’homme des Folies Bergère], based on Rudolph Lothar and Hans Adler’s story The Red Cat. It was later remade in 1951 as On the Riviera, with Danny Kaye.

Also in the cast are S Z Sakall, J Carrol Naish, Curt Bois, Leonid Kinskey, Frank Puglia, Lillian Porter, Maria Montez, Georges Renavent, Edward Conrad, Fortunio Bonanova, Flores Brothers, Banda la Lua, Gino Corrado, Eugene Borden, Jean del Val, Charles De Ravenne, Bess Flowers, Alberto Morin and Frederick Vogeding.

It followed Miranda’s American debut in Down Argentine Way, also with Ameche, but not with Faye, who was sick and was replaced by Betty Grable.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8579

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