Événement

That Man from Rio @ Robert Classic French Film Festival

Though best known for the 1970s rep-house fave "King of Hearts" (1966), director Philippe de Broca first established his reputation with this spectacularly entertaining spoof of the Bond-style adventure film. Beginning when a blow-dart-wielding thug steals a rare statuette from the Musée de l'Homme and kidnaps an anthropologist (Jean Servais of "Rififi"), "That Man from Rio" kick-starts its nonstop action and never eases off the throttle. Following the theft, serviceman Adrien (Jean-Paul Belmondo) arrives in Paris on an eight-day leave just in time to see fiancée Agnès (Françoise Dorléac, Catherine Deneuve's sister) similarly snatched from the streets. Adrien follows in frantic pursuit, and a globe-spanning chase ensues -- moving first to Rio and then to Brasilia and involving motorcycle, airport baggage carrier, cable car, Amazon riverboat, seaplane, and jungle vine -- with Belmondo performing his own heart-stopping stunts.

The Village Voice's Stephanie Zacharek raves: "'That Man from Rio' is a crazy delight, a stylish, early-'60s pastiche that folds in every adventure-movie cliché you've ever seen, and possibly invents a few new ones. De Broca ... orchestrates all this mishegas with verve and wicked wit, and in vibrant, wide-screen color, no less. The too-muchness is the fun, though de Broca still finds ways to let the charm of his actors shine through: A scene in which the very proper Parisian Agnès dances barefoot with a group of adorable Brazilian kids makes the most of Dorléac's dazzling, impish energy. And you haven't lived until you've seen Belmondo's Adrien come thisclose to parachuting into the jaws of a peckish, waiting crocodile."

With an introduction and post-film discussion by Renée Hirshfield, adjunct professor of film studies at Southwestern Illinois College.