The Girl from Rio (1969)

RELEASED IN 1969 and directed by Jesús Franco, “The Girl from Rio” (aka “Rio 70”) stars Richard Wyler as a handsome man on a mission in Rio who’s caught between a mobster (George Sanders) & his heavies (Herbert Fleischmann) and a femme fatale (Shirley Eaton) who wants to rule the world with her army of machine gun-fortified feminazis. This is the second part of a duology after “The Million Eyes of Sumuru” (1967), which I’ve never seen and you don’t need to view to appreciate (or withstand) this one. “The Girl from Rio” is a tacky late 60’s spy-adventure that combines elements of “That Man from Rio” (1964), Franco’s “Kiss Me, Monster” (1969), “Invasion of the Bee Girls” (1973) and Bond flicks of the same period, albeit without the budget and compelling script. If you have a taste for those types of movies you’ll probably enjoy “Rio.” Like “Kiss Me” and “Invasion” there’s a lot of filler and the corresponding tedious sequences. A full 35 minutes of the runtime could’ve (and should’ve) been cut to make the movie more enthralling, but then it wouldn’t be “feature length,” which is why filmmakers add dull “filler” material. What makes a movie like this worthwhile is the late 60’s chic, the outlandish spy rudiments and the babes. Eaton, the gold-painted girl from “Goldfinger” (1965) leads the way on the latter front with capable assist from Marta Reves (Ulla), Beni Cardoso (Yana), Elisa Montés (Irene) and Maria Rohm (Lesley). In an interview Eaton said she wept on the plane home from Rio because filmmaking was so exhausting and she desperately wanted to be with her husband & children. It was understandably her last film. THE MOVIE RUNS 1 hours & 34 minutes and was shot in (aduh) Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with studio work done in Spain. WRITER: Harry Alan Towers. GRADE: C