cult film freak: MICHELLE JOHNSON WITH MICHAEL CAINE IN 'BLAME IT ON RIO'

Sherwood Productions logo for Stanley Donen's BLAME IT ON RIO Year: 1984 Rating: ***1/2

In Stanley Donen's 1980's glossy/uptempo Americanized French-remake BLAME IT ON RIO, one creative sequence really stands out: when Michael Caine, on his way to the titular location for a busman's holiday with business partner Joseph Bologna, gazes through the airplane window and sees plane-wing-dancing footage from the Golden Age of Hollywood that Donen had reignited with SINGIN' IN THE RAIN...

After that, RIO is the usual older-guy-hooks-up-with-hot-young-dream-girl comedy, where real life model Michelle Johnson's mere perfection provides its own novelty, allowing actor's actor Michael Caine a chance to do light comedy before it would garner an Oscar in Woody Allen's upcoming HANNAH AND HER SISTERS (as Caine's 4th-wall-breaking narration is straight from ANNIE HALL)...

From BLAME IT ON RIO

While Johnson's squeaky, high-pitched speaking voice sounds more overheard than that of a practiced actress (outshined by a young Demi Moore as Caine's daughter with bitter wife Valerie Harper), she has not only the tall knockout male-fantasy looks but the bubbly naivete that compliments an older man who could have seemed creepy (especially since Michelle even wears little-girl braces) if Caine hadn't played it equally shy, clumsy and unassuming...

Leaving Alpha-Male Bolonga to deliberately steal scenes like MY FAVORITE YEAR, that successfully did for Peter O'Toole what this semi-feebly attempts for Caine... providing a legendary British dramatist a mainstream comedy (for a nice paycheck)... but there's not enough affable quirkiness within the movie itself to equal what both Caine, Johnson and Donen are attempting: more of a 1950's-style vintage throwback with modern edge than a 1980's sex romp exploitation with kitschy nostalgia.