Rio [DVD]

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Interestingly, James Stewart was apparently briefly slated for this film, presumably in Cummings’s part, and nearly lost his Destry Rides Again role in the process, with Joel McCrea briefly replacing him on that film. The role of Irene had been earmarked for Danielle Darrieux, the great French star whose 80-year career stretched from 1931 to 2010, seven years before her death at 100. However, Darrieux didn’t like the script (with good reason), so eventually Sigrid Gurie took her place. Born in Brooklyn but raised in Norway and other parts of Europe, she was dubbed “the Norwegian Garbo,” though her singing in Rio is rather more like sub-Marlene Dietrich. She made a big splash in Algiers and The Adventures of Marco Polo (both 1938, that latter also starring Rathbone), but made few films after, the best known being the interesting Three Faces West (1940) with John Wayne. She’s adequate, but no Darrieux. Irene, meanwhile, has resumed her singing career, at Roberto’s Café, where Dirk works as a bartender. (Comedy relief supplied here by Billy Gilbert and Leo Carriilo.) There she encounters alcoholic American engineer Bill Gregory (Robert Cummings), on an extended bender after a bridge he designed collapsed. Bill falls in love with Irene, sobers up and is revitalized by an irrigation project, but she’s unwilling to abandon her imprisoned husband. Rathbone plays Paul Reynaud, a Bernie Madoff-type Parisian financier arrested for embezzlement and forgery, causing a huge scandal in France’s banking industry and rampant personal bankruptcies among Paris’s millionaires, some of whom commit suicide. Sentenced to a long prison term on Devil’s Island, he asks Dirk (Victor McLaglen), his inexplicably devoted valet and bodyguard, to look after Reynaud’s wife, Irene (Sigrid Gurie), hoping she’ll soon forget him. There is nothing wrong with the voice acting. The main cast, Jesse Eisenber and Anne Hathaway are like the bird versions of them. Jemaine Clement really made his character evil. The rest of the cast, Will.i.am, Jamie Foxx and George Lopez adds more fun to the movie. I just wish Tracy Morgan's character Luiz had more scenes.

Instead of exploring any of these ideas, the last third of the picture becomes depressingly conventional, with Reynaud indeed escaping with another prisoner (Irving Bacon), though just how he breaks out isn’t even shown. He then commits an act of violence so out of the blue—and, ultimately, one that serves no purpose at all—that it leaves the film nowhere to go from there. Its Production Code-mandated resolution so preordained, the script is forced into directions that neatly tie everything up but in the least interesting and satisfying way imaginable. No less than four writers worked on the script, including Aben Kandel, who decades later infamously partnered with Herman Cohen on virtually all that producer’s trashy horror films. Instead, Irene and Dirk travel to Rio de Janeiro—according to dialogue because it’s so close to the island penal colony. (It isn’t. Rio is on the other side of Brazil, nearly 3,300 kilometers away.) She writes her husband regularly, but a petulant, sadistic guard (Irving Pichel) begins intercepting the letters and ripping them up undelivered, and Reynaud becomes increasingly desperate to escape. One can’t help but wonder what kind of audience Kino is targeting here. Basil Rathbone fans? Classic horror fans drawn to tangential genre titles from the same period? Irving Bacon completists? On one hand, it’s great to see movies as obscure as Rio getting the Blu-ray treatment, and with an audio commentary yet, but the film is minor and ultimately a disappointment.

The visuals are colorful and very spectacular. It really shows how beautiful Rio De Janeiro is. The flying sequence is indeed breathtaking even if it's in 2D. The problem of the movie is it's not so compelling. The ending seems rushed. We will all know what's gonna happened to this flightless bird. Although the movie has a big heart. The movie is often funny of course.

The main plot of "Rio", an endangered bird doesn't know how to fly. It sounds a bit predictable and this plot was already used by many movies. But the core of this film is showing the beautiful place of Rio De Janeiro. The filmmaking was great. Colorful visuals, often hilarious, and decent directing.