L'Homme De Rio / That Man From Rio (1964 Philippe de Broca & co-scr)

It was such a pleasure to see this restored and on Blu-Ray instead of that terribly washed out print that's been doing the rounds.

It's incredibly lively from the moment Françoise Dorléac is kidnapped and Jean-Paul Belmondo springs into action (he's rarely doing anything else). They both have great vivacity and his Harold Lloyd-like stunts are jaw dropping (high rise clambering with no visible signs of safety). In fact the film often invokes the silent era, with sixties fixings. My last review was that it was like North By Northwest through nouvelle vague eyes, with definite Tintin and early Bond moments, with even a Popeye reference - this time I'm inclined to suggest it's 80% Tintin. Françoise Javet's editing though is very much of its time and in what I dubbed a 'Hergé edit' JP goes from swimming to suddenly accompanying a girl on water-skies.

The 'Hergé edit' in action: Cigars of the Pharoah

Great badinage between the couple ("I suppose you want a pink car with green stars" - a 1929 Chrysler 75, I am reliably informed), film perhaps drags a bit towards the end, involving Adolfo Celi and Jean Servais (though even here there is some astonishing scenes shot in a new bit of Rio or Brasilia or wherever they are), but the best bits involve whisky-drinking charming kid Ubiracy de Oliveira (only in one other film) - there's a lovely clip of him meeting JP in 2015 here.

Music Georges Delerue, photography Edmond Séchan.

The story / screenplay by Jean-Paul Rappeneau, Arian Mnouchkine, Daniel Boulanger and de Broca was Oscar-nominated