Rio (1939) DVD-R

Starring Basil Rathbone, Victor McLaglen, Sigrid Gurie, Robert Cummings,
Leo Carrillo, Billy Gilbert, Irving Bacon
Directed by John Brahm

Print: black/white
Runtime: 77 min.
Genre: film-noir
Print Quality: C-

Though running a mere 75 minutes, Rio has enough plot for ten movies.
Basil Rathbone and Sigrid Gurie, previously teamed in The Adventures of
Marco Polo, head the cast as crooked French financier Paul Reynard and
his wife Irene. Sentenced to a ten-year term in a French penal colony for
bank fraud, Paul wonders if his wife will remain faithful to him. At first
glance it seems that he has nothing to worry about: Irene and family
friend Dirk (Victor McLaglen) head to Rio to arrange for Paul's escape,
with Dirk vowing to shield Irene from any and all sexual predators. But
once she's landed in the Brazilian capital, Irene falls in love with red-
blooded American engineer Bill Gregory (Robert Cummings). Upon
emerging from his dank prison cell, Paul realizes that he's lost his wife
forever to a better man. Seeking revenge, he prepares to shoot Bill in
cold blood, but good old Dirk intervenes, paving the way for a happy
ending — for everyone but Paul, that is. Though he plays a thoroughly
unsavory character, Basil Rathbone ends up the most sympathetic person
in the film, and as such he's the only real reason to sit through the
melodramatic convolutions of Rio.