Of all his films, I've often thought that Jess Franco seemed to be having the most fun when engaged in lightweight comic book romps, be they Lucky the Inscrutable or the Red Lips pairing of Sadisterotica and Kiss me Monster, and this deliriously mad romp definitely fits in with those movies. Inspired by the likes of Danger: Diabolik and Barbarella, The Girl from Rio – ostensibly based on a Sax Rohmer story, though I doubt he's recognise much of it – is a ridiculous, sexy and trashy slice of loungetastic silliness that is hard to resist.

The plot is pretty incoherent, playing second fiddle to the ludicrous costumes and general air of cartoonish excess, but it involves playboy and fraudster Jeff (Richard Wyler), who turns up in Rio with a suitcase containing $10 million (or does he?) and finds himself catching the attention of crime boss Masiu (George Sanders) and Sumanda (or Sumitra, depending on whether you believe the dialogue or the credits), effectively a second stab at the Sumuru role for Shirley Eaton playing the leader of Femina, the City of Women. As the story wanders from point to point, throwing in supporting characters who appear and disappear at random, the whole thing becomes fairly incoherent, which would be a problem for most films. But here, it somehow adds to the weird charm, allowing you to sit back and enjoy the garish spectacle without having to worry about following the plot.

Like a lot of Sixties Euro spy heroes, Wyler is astonishingly charmless and smug – his 'seduction' of a manicurist early on has to be seen to be believed – and he wanders through the film in a daze. Sanders, close to the end of his career (the triumph of Psychomania being only a couple of years away) looks perpetually befuddled, and – as Franco suggests in the entertaining featurette included on the disc – Eaton, her hair switching randomly from blonde to black, is attractive but somehow out of place. You can't believe in her as this cruel, sexually confident character, and you can't help but wonder how much more effective one of Franco's muses like Soledad Miranda or Lina Romay might have been in the role.

But none of that matters in the end, as this cheerfully mad film trundles along, throwing in a great bossa nova soundtrack (and cracking theme tune), ludicrously impractical and sexy outfits for the Femina residents, some ridiculous torture scenes, gratuitous (if mild) nudity and unconvincing action scenes.

Like a lot of 1960s Euro spy / superhero / comic book films, The Girl from Rio is not a good movie in any conventional sense. But it is hugely entertaining, gloriously camp and massively silly, and there's always room for that sort of thing in my life. Yours too, I hope.

DAVID FLINT

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