"Absolutamente Certo" is one of the last specimens of the "Golden Era" of the so-called "chanchadas" (as Brazilian popular musical comedies were deprecatingly called by film critics). This one is about an ordinary man, Zé do Lino (Anselmo Duarte), who memorizes the entire phone-book of São Paulo (a colossal feat even then) and enters a TV quiz show dreaming of buying a wheelchair for his invalid father (José Policena) and get married to his longtime sweetheart (Maria Dilnah). But baddie Raul (Aurélio Teixeira) and his gang want to profit by placing bets on Zé's failure and will do everything to stop him from winning.
In the 1950s, Anselmo Duarte was the #1 male heartthrob in Brazilian movies, starring in very popular comedies and dramas for the two biggest Brazilian studios at the time (Atlântida in Rio de Janeiro, and Vera Cruz in São Paulo). "Absolutamente Certo" is his debut as director/ writer (he also plays the leading role) and it's symptomatically a "mélange" of styles of the two studios: the technically "sophisticated" treatment of Vera Cruz (good camera-work by British D.P. Chick Fowle, agile editing by Spanish José Cañizares, above average budget) and the "popular" feel of Atlântida (especially because of slapstick comedienne Dercy Gonçalves in the cast and the tacky -- or kitsch if you will -- staging of the musical numbers). Though plagued by a fatally banal plot, Duarte's debut as director is surprisingly assured, undoubtedly helped by the experienced crew. There are two really good sequences in the streets of São Paulo (one in a white Jaguar, the other in a streetcar), better than average sound recording and well-staged fistfights. What it lacks -- direly -- is real laughs.
Besides loudmouth Dercy Gonçalves (who's so over-the-top she's hysterically unfunny; notice she's made up to look like Fellini's Gelsomina), the cast includes gorgeous kittenish Odete Lara in a star turn as a double-cross blonde, parading her sexy hourglass figure, dancing provocatively, doing her own singing, driving a Romi Isetta (which MUST be the frailest, wackiest car ever made) and giving Duarte a French kiss (very bold at the time); Lyris Castellani in the "Zezé" number, who owned the thickest, meatiest pair of thighs ever employed in dancing; and craggy faced Brazilian boxing champ Paulo de Jesus, in the underdeveloped small role of a struggling boxer who has his arm broken by Raul's gang.
Don't expect much, but don't underestimate "Absolutamente Certo" -- it's from the time when a "good director" meant an "efficient director" and a "good comedy" meant a "popular comedy", before the auteur theory and the Cinema Novo (New Wave) movement changed Brazilian movies in the 60s. Duarte tries but can't quite mix comedy and drama (few filmmakers can, anyway), but he had ambition and drive: remember his next film was "O Pagador de Promessas/The Given Word/The Payer of Promises" (1962), big winner of Cannes' Golden Palm (against formidable competition) and Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Film.
Overall, "Absolutamente Certo" is a harmless pastime, an honest film and a curious period piece, if only to see how Odete Lara and São Paulo looked like in the late 50s . But it's certainly ironic that it deals with (and criticizes) the public's fascination with then incipient TV industry in Brazil -- the very same TV industry that in just a few more years would wipe the "chanchadas" off Brazilian screens, by ripping off its themes, stars, style and form.
