As a French museum closes for noon lunch, two mysterious men break in, shoot a worker with a poison dart, steal a statuette of the ancient Maltec civilization—one of three in existence which supposedly can be used to find a hidden treasure in the Amazon—and kidnap museum archeologist Professor Catalan. At the same time, Adrien, a private in the Air Force, arrives in Paris on a one-week leave to visit his girlfriend Agnes. But their reunion is short-lived—she is kidnapped as well, her connection being that her late father worked with Catalan to unearth the Maltec figures, and the villains assume Catalan and Agnes may know where to find the other statues. Adrien chases her on foot and finds that she has been drugged and flown to Rio. He manages to get on the same flight, follows them, and sets out to rescue her. He does, and together they rescue Catalan. A rich Brazilian businessman named De Castro owns the second figure and only Agnes knows that the third one is buried somewhere on her late father's property. But not everyone is quite whom they seem, and to give any more plot summary would spoil the fun.
This movie was marketed (and is still sometimes described) as a parody of the James Bond films, but that's not quite accurate. Adrien is not a spy, just a fellow dragged into a dangerous adventure, rather like a Hitchcock hero from The 39 Steps or North by Northwest. Actually the film seems equally inspired by Hitchcock, by silent film escapades (one moment, pictured at left, conjures up a famous scene in Harold Lloyd’s classic Safety Last), and by the cliffhanging adventure serials of the 30s and 40s. But the movie that RIO most conjured up for me was Raiders of the Lost Ark, made twenty years later, with its hero plunging into and escaping from one tight squeeze after another (including a rip-roaring bar fight) while searching for a valuable ancient artifact. At the climax, we discover that the three statuettes, combined with sunlight, reveal the hidden treasure, as in Raiders. This all may not be accidental, as Steven Spielberg has noted his high esteem for this film. (The director, Philippe de Broca, acknowledged the Tintin series of adventure books as a major influence, and Spielberg made a Tintin movie in 2011.)
Though this is a French film with a leading man right out of 60s New Wave cinema (Jean-Paul Belmondo as Adrien), it is not "avant-garde" in the slightest, and as long as you can deal with subtitles, it can be enjoyed by any fan of Hollywood light-hearted adventure. However, it's not quite as light as the New York Times found it in 1964—their review notes that despite all the villainous menacing, no one gets hurt, but in fact at least two characters do die. Despite being set in Brazil, there are no important native characters except a young street urchin (who actually lives in an interesting little shed) named Sir Winston—possibly an inspiration for Short Round in Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. The stunt set pieces, including chases in cars and planes, are amazing, and it's obvious that Belmondo does much of his own stunt work. Belmondo is athletic, sexy and charming, and Françoise Dorleac, sister of Catherine Deneuve, as Agnes holds her own with the same qualities. (Sadly, Dorleac would die at the age of 25 in a car accident only three years after this film was released.) Jean Servias is Catalan and Italian actor Adolfo Celi (later the bad guy in the Bond film Thunderball) is De Castro. This movie is colorful with lots of interesting location photography, and if you can suspend disbelief over how far Adrien is able to go with no money or resources, you'll have a lot of fun. [TCM]
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