Die Sieben Männer der Sumuru |
West Germany / Spain / USA • 1969 • 94m •
   • Directed by: Jesús Franco. • Starring: Shirley Eaton, Richard Wyler, George Sanders, Maria Rohm, Marta Reves, Elisa Montés, Beni Cardoso, Herbert Fleischmann, Geraldo José Torres Camargo, Maria de Lourdes, Yuma Duarte, Cornélio dos Santos Farias, Jesús Franco. • Music by: Daniel White.   Jeff Sutton arrives in Rio de Janeiro with a suitcase with 10 million dollars, and the powerful mobster Sir Masius sends his henchman Carl with his gangsters to follow Jeff and get the money. Jeff has one affair with the manicure Leslye and succeeds to escape from Sir Masius' mobsters. Meanwhile, Sumuru, the leader of the women of the City of Femina that wants to defeat the men and take over the world, captures Jeff and brings him to Femina expecting to get the money. Sumuru has several prisoners locked in glass cages, including Ulla Rossini, who knows Jeff Sutton. Jeff discloses to Ulla that his arrival is part of a plan to save her from Sumuru. Jeff Sutton becomes a pawn in the middle of the war between Masius and Sumuru.
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Review:
Eaton stars as lesbian megalomaniac Sunanda who is hell-bent on dominating the world with the help of her all-woman army of men-haters (which in itself should be more than enough to pique most trash movie fans' interest). Building a vast fortune by kidnapping the world's wealthiest people, the power-hungry women's libber has built her own city, Femina, from which she plans to launch her attack on mankind.
Sunanda's latest target is playboy Jeff Sutton (Richard Wyler), who is rumoured to be carrying $10million cash with him in his briefcase; also interested in the money is Sunanda's rival, Rio crime boss Masius (Sanders). In reality there is no money, the briefcase being used as bait to reel in Sunanda, Jeff having been hired to locate missing heiress Ulla (Marta Reves) who he believes is being held captive in Femina.
With this three-way of Sunanda, Masius and Sutton established, all Franco is left to do is pad out his movie to feature length with assorted nonsense, which includes gangsters in creepy masks, lots of Rio carnival padding (including a one-legged reveller busting moves in the street), some torture via Sunanda's craptastic microwave ray, Eaton wearing a lacy body stocking, hilarious dialogue ('Don't be nasty—daddy doesn't like it'), more leggy totty than you can shake a stick at, and several silly showdowns, Jeff narrowly escaping on most occasions thanks to his incredible martial arts skills (a karate chop here, a judo throw there) or his trusty pistol (for use only when his chopping hand is feeling sore). When he's not kicking bad guy butt, Jeff's weapon of choice is his irresistible charm, with which he lures women—even dedicated man-haters—into bed with ease (thus allowing Franco to easily meet his quota of female nudity).
Ultimately, Femina is stormed by Jeff and Masius, who form an alliance to ensure continuing male superiority, their assault on the city resulting in a barrage of badly edited fake gunfire and an amateurish assault of unconvincing stock footage explosions. In a suitably silly final scene, Sunanda is shown to have survived the attack, despite having supposedly blown herself up with a self-destruct device inside her gold vault.
Review by BA_Harrison from the Internet Movie Database.
Movie Database