That Night in Rio
                                                                             
Director: Irving Cummings
Year: 1941
Rating: 6.0
About 8 minutes into this film - after a seven minute opening musical number - I realized I had just seen this film a few weeks ago. Or close to it. This is a remake of the 1935 Folies Bergere and it follows that script like a shadow. They change a few things around but not a lot in terms of plot. The actors are different and the songs are different.  And it is in Technicolor which gives it that beautiful glossy look. This one has better musical numbers - perhaps because they are choreographed by Hermes Pan, the fellow who choreographed all the Astaire-Rogers films. More lavish and the colors sparkle.



The main difference though are the actors and I can't judge which I prefer.  This stars Don Ameche and he is fine here - maybe overplays it a bit but he is no Maurice Chevalier who was in the other one. Chevalier has a natural charm while it feels like Ameche has to force it. In Folies the wife is played by Merle Oberon in full on beauty mode - here is Fox's big musical star Alice Faye. Faye sings and has a lovely low voice - Oberon did not but I fell for Merle in that film. And as the jealous girlfriend it is Ann Sothern vs Carmen Miranda here. This was Miranda's second film in Hollywood after Down in Argentina - she has a few credits in Brazil before that which would be interesting - and she is given centerstage with three songs - a lot of Chica Chica Boom. She has already become a caricature of herself with the crazy headgear, beads, flamboyant dress, flashing eyes, red lipstick and accented dialogue that flies by at the speed of sound. She is great and it is no surprise that she became a gay icon.



So, it has the same plot as Folies Bergere, but if you missed that here it is. Ameche as Larry is an entertainer on stage in Rio and Carmen is his girlfriend and part of the show. She is also crazy jealous of anything in skirts. Part of his act is to impersonate a famous businessman - the Baron Duarte (also played by Ameche). The Baron comes into the theater one night and sees the show - he goes backstage and flirts with Carmen, while Larry flirts with the Baroness (Faye) at the bar. The Baron finds out that he is about to go broke unless he can get some overnight financing. He leaves for Buenos Aires but he is throwing a party that night and his two righthand men get Larry to impersonate him. There are as expected the usual confusion with the wife and girlfriend. Nothing too surprising especially if you saw the other film.  Two of my favorite character actors are on hand - S. Z. Sakall as one of his righthand men doing his trademark two hands to his cheek a few times and Leonid Kinskey as the lothario trying to hit on the Baroness. J. Carrol Naish is in it too. These three and then Betty Grable about the same time were Fox's musical talent and all their films are colorful campy fun.