Blame It on Rio (1984)

Starring Michael Caine, Joseph Bologna, Valerie Harper, Michelle Johnson, Demi Moore
Directed by Stanley Donen

Matt (Caine) has a fling with Jennifer (Johnson), his best friend's teenage daughter. They are in Rio de Janeiro on vacation at the time. Karen (Harper), Matt's wife, was originally supposed to go with them but she changes her mind at the last minute. Matt and Victor still go with their teenage daughters, Jennifer and Nicole. Jennifer throws herself at Matt and he gives in. Victor finds out that Jennifer is sleeping with an older man but doesn't know his name. He asks Matt to find out who the man is. Matt holds out for a while but finally tells Victor that he is the older man. Soon thereafter Matt learns that Victor has a secret of his own.

In the very early days of video (VHS) rental my father signed up for a service (whose name I do not recall) where you could request a movie by phone and then it would be delivered to a nearby store. One of my brothers, without our parents knowing it, requested this movie. When they found out what the movie was about the VHS cassette was returned unwatched.

This movie gets extremely low marks from critics: 9% on rotten tomatoes, 21 out of 23 critics gave it a negative rating.

I had never seen this movie before but I was aware of it. It is ostensibly a comedy. It didn't make me laugh as much as it made me roll my eyes. It is not a very good movie, with or without the scandalous premise. The characters are lacking in depth. The whole focus of the movie is the tug of war between Matt and Jennifer. She wants to be open about their relationship and he wants to end it, even though he has sex with her more than once. This movie would not get made today or if it did then it wouldn't get a big screen theatrical release. It would be a straight to video sort of movie.

This was the last film directed by Stanley Donen that wasn't made for TV. He is better known for some of his older films such as Singin' in the Rain and Seven Brides for Seven Brothers.

This was the first movie for Michelle Johnson. She has appeared on a number of TV shows and movie since then although her most recent acting gig for television or movies was in 2004.

Joseph Bologna died in 2017. His acting career for television and movies spanned just over 4 decades He was the voice of Metropolis Police Detective Dan Turpin on Superman: The Animated Series. Michael Caine and Demi Moore blah, blah, blah.