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From the opening credits on, a quintessential piece of Thirties kookiness straight out of Man Ray. Vargas-era Rio is a peculiar blend of modernist swank and antiquated marriage arrangements, the gang arrives there from Miami following a pit stop in a Caribbean island. The central triangle involves the flirty Latin heiress (Dolores Del Rio), her jelly-chinned fiancé (Raul Roulien) and the American bandleader (Gene Raymond), though the real fun is on the sidelines: Franklin Pangborn's double-take at a hotel maid's copious prow, a malentendu at the "Port-au-Prince Golf Club" (the shirtless "cannibals" turn out to be plummy guests teeing through), Ginger Rogers in a diaphanous gown singing "Music Makes Me." Thornton Freeland sets out to match the Busby Berkeley bacchanalias over at Warners, and "The Carioca," "a bit of wicked wacky-wicky" with revolving stages and torrid dancing couples practically bending each other horizontally, is a valiant try. Haphazard as it is, the movie earns its place in cinema history by first pairing Fred Astaire's spectral grace with Rogers' trouper brassiness. He watches the insinuating slinky figures on the dance floor, and invites her for a twirl: "Looks hot. Let's try a little of that, babe." (Their coitus is interrupted, then consummated in The Gay Divorcee and beyond.) A pre-Code tour de force of inane illusionism and peekaboo nipples caps this sensualist hodgepodge, grinning showgirls with propellers strapped to dominatrix outfits and paraded on the wings of airplanes above Hollywood's Brazil. ("I'll try anything once" is heard over a crotch-shot of nubile aviatrixes.) Somewhere, Howard Hughes foamed with envy. With Blanche Friderici, Walter Walker, Etta Moten, Paul Porcasi, Eric Blore, and Clarence Muse. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |