September 18 & 25 | 4 Movies
Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15th to October 15th) is a celebration of the many contributions Hispanics and Latinos have made throughout history. From the early days of Hollywood, Hispanic actors have been a driving force in the film industry demonstrating not only their talents but also their versatility and broad appeal.
Despite their triumphs, they have had to endure many obstacles. Hollywood had little to offer Hispanic actors and many were relegated to playing the stereotypical roles of the Latin lover, the feisty spitfire, the bandito or even playing another ethnicity altogether. According to film historian Luis I. Reyes, in his new book Viva Hollywood: The Legacy of Latin and Hispanic Artists in American Film, “the burgeoning motion picture industry secured a living and a future for many Latinos and Latinas in and around Los Angeles by creating jobs and opportunities. Yet, racism and ignorance made it difficult for them to reach stellar heights in the industry… Many well-known screen actors and actresses changed their names to match the screen images created by the Hollywood dream factories and to distance themselves from their ethnicities.”
This month TCM will be shining a spotlight on four films that made strides towards better representation for Hispanics and Latinos on screen.
Mexican-born actor Lalo Rios, whose film and television career spanned a mere two decades, played small roles in films like Touch of Evil (1958), The Magnificent Seven (1960) and Lonely Are the Brave (1962). However, what really stands out about Rios is his emergence as an early Latino rebel in film. The very beginning of his career saw him starring in The Lawless (1950) and The Ring (1952), two films that criticized bigotry and the treatment of Mexican Americans. In these films, Rios plays a young man who pushes back instead of falling victim to his circumstances.
The Lawless was a low-budget B movie for Paramount that was the brainchild of writer Geoffrey Homes, the pen name for writer Daniel Mainwaring, best known for Out of the Past (1947). In an article Homes wrote for “The New York Times”, he said that The Lawless was “the first picture to be made about discrimination against Mexican-Americans, and the ‘lawless' are people in a northern California town who learn about tolerance the hard and violent way. I laid the story in the farm country north of Sacramento where a great number of migratory workers, at least a third of them Mexicans or Mexican-Americans, are employed during the various fruit harvests.”
Lalo Rios plays Paul Rodriguez, a Mexican fruit picker (referred to by the derogatory term “fruit tramp”), who draws ire from local teens in a neighboring town. Racial tensions arise when one of those teens, Joe (Johnny Sands), starts a fight with Paul and his friend Lopo (Maurice Jara) at a dance party. A series of accidents and misunderstandings leads to a manhunt and a lynch mob. The film stars Macdonald Carey and Gail Russell as the newspaper editor and journalist who try to set the record straight about Paul.
Directed by Joseph Losey, best known for making progressively minded films like The Boy with the Green Hair (1948), spotted Lalo Rios at a party. According to columnist Hedda Hopper, Losey was “struck by his sensitive face and expressive eyes.” Producers William Pine and William Thomas, known collectively as the “Dollar Bills”, were impressed by Rios who was both photogenic and a natural as an actor, despite having no formal training. Rios was a carpenter at the time and left his job to earn $250 a week to work on the film. The film was shot over 18 days in Northern California and many locals of Marysville and Grass Valley were employed as extras for the mob scenes. While Gail Russell was not Hispanic, her darker features and her role as a Paramount contract player lead to her role as Sunny Garcia. Lalo Rios and Maurice Jara stand out for being Mexican actors playing Mexican roles. Jara went on to work in film and television and had a small role in Giant (1956).
The Lawless is a scathing look at both bigotry and socioeconomic division in small town America. The epilogue serves up this potent message: “this is the story of a town and of some of its people, who, in the grip of blind anger forget their American heritage of tolerance and decency, and become the lawless.” It comes at a time when post WWII social problem films like Crossfire (1947), Gentleman’s Agreement (1947), Lost Boundaries (1949) and Pinky (1949) were examining antisemitism and racism in America. The Lawless premiered in late June 1950 in San Antonio, TX. It received mostly positive reviews and was recognized by The Lulacs “an organization which promoted a loyal, united Latin-American society.”
After a few uncredited roles, Lalo Rios landed a plum role in the independent film The Ring. Produced by the King Brothers and directed by Kurt Neumann, The Ring tells the story of Tommy Cantanios, a young Mexican American man who takes up boxing to provide for his family. Tommy emerges as Tommy Kansas, a name given to him by his manager Pete (Gerald Mohr). Throughout the film, Rios’ character is faced with the economic pressures of providing for his family, the disdain his father has for his new profession and the challenges facing Mexican American youth in Los Angeles.
While Lalo Rios’s character Tommy is the protagonist and the main focus of the movie, Rios received third billing after Gerald Mohr and Rita Moreno, who plays Tommy’s girlfriend Lucy Gomez. Puerto Rican born Moreno was at the beginning of her movie career. The Ring was made shortly before Moreno’s bit role in Singin’ in the Rain (1952) and almost a decade before her standout performance as Anita in West Side Story (1961). The Ring was an opportunity for Moreno to play a different type of role than what she had been offered before. Moreno looked back fondly on the role saying “Everyone in the film and in the family are good people. He’s not a gangster, he’s not a bad boy. She’s a good girl. She has very traditional Mexican values.”
The Ring stands out for its positive depiction of Mexican Americans and for the casting of actual Latino actors in the various roles. Despite having two lead roles under his belt, Lalo Rios would go on to be cast only in supporting or bit roles. Author Luis I. Reyes writes, “In The Ring, Rios could be regarded as Hollywood’s first Latino working-class rebel hero, as he expressed postwar concerns that developed into the Chicano (Mexican American) civil rights movement of the 1960s. His character is a progenitor of the teenage antihero that James Dean played in Rebel Without a Cause.”
The second part of this month’s Hispanic Heritage Month lineup takes a look at two films set in Spanish Harlem. Director Sidney Lumet’s The Pawnbroker (1964) was one of the first films to examine the psychological trauma endured by Holocaust survivors. Rod Steiger plays Sol Nazerman, the manager of a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem run by a notorious pimp (Brock Peters). Sol has closed himself off to emotional relationships and the reality around him. His cold demeanor is a defense mechanism as he’s continuously haunted by the memories of the violent deaths of his wife and children. Puerto Rican actor Jaime Sánchez plays Jesus Ortiz, Sol’s work colleague. Jesus tries to break through Sol’s icy veneer, engaging with him on the particulars of the business. Jesus wants a better life for himself, his mother (Eusebia Cosme) and his prostitute girlfriend (Thelma Oliver). When Jesus fails to get through to Sol, he comes up with another plan for his future which leads to tragic results.
The Pawnbroker is extraordinary in its depiction of Afro-Latinos and mixed race relationships. Even to this day, films lack representation of how racially diverse the Hispanic and Latino communities really are. About The Pawnbroker, author Luis I. Reyes writes “ [it] captures a gritty and realistic look at the 1960s East Harlem neighborhood known as El Barrio because of its predominantly Puerto Rican inhabitants surrounding the pawnshop’s 116th Street and Park Avenue location.” Jaime Sánchez’s character Jesus is mixed race with an Afro-Caribbean mother and is in a romantic relationship with a black woman. Sánchez studied acting in New York City and played Chino in the original Broadway production of West Side Story. He made his film debut in David and Lisa (1962) and went on to have a career in television and film. In The Pawnbroker, his mother is played by Eusebia Cosme, an Afro-Cuban actress best known for performing spoken poetry in concert halls, public arenas and on radio. Cosme practiced “poesia negra” which is described as “a specific type of recitation of poetry which is tied to the African experience.” Cosme was just starting her film career when she was cast in The Pawnbroker.
Also in the cast is Juano Hernandez, one of the most celebrated Afro-Latino actors of the 20th Century. Hernandez was born in Puerto Rico and raised in Brazil. He was a self-taught actor, multilingual and he perfected his English by studying the work of Shakespeare. A critic for “The New York Times” once called him “quietly magnificent” which is the perfect description for his many wonderful performances in films such as Intruder in the Dust (1949), Young Man with a Horn (1950) and Trial (1955). In The Pawnbroker, one of the last films he ever made, Hernandez plays Mr. Smith, a talkative patron who is rejected by the hardened Sol. Hernandez delivers a powerful performance, looking into the camera with a poignant look of loneliness and despair.
The trials and tribulations of the Puerto Rican community of Spanish Harlem are brought to the forefront in the dark comedy Popi (1969). Directed by Arthur Hiller, Popi stars Alan Arkin as Abraham/Popi, a widower and single father living in a rundown tenement building. He works several jobs to support his sons Luis (Reuben Figueroa) and Junior (Miguel Alejandro). When he isn’t trying to keep them out of trouble, he half-heartedly attempts a romantic relationship with his girlfriend Lupe (Rita Moreno), a neighbor who cares deeply about the welfare of Abraham and his sons. Abraham is desperate to give his sons a better life and concocts a crazy plan to pose them as Cuban refugees in order to get them adopted by wealthy white families.
Popi was written by husband-and-wife writing team Lester and Tina Pine who also scripted A Man Called Adam (1966) and Claudine (1974). Alan Arkin had just come off the success of his two Academy Award nominated performances in The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming (1966) and The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1968) when he was cast by producer Herbert B. Leonard in Popi. It doesn’t seem like Leonard had considered casting a Hispanic actor in the role of Abraham. Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni was considered but he rejected the idea of being able to play a Puerto Rican character. According to the AFI, a search was conducted for Puerto Rican boys to play the sons Luis and Junior. Over 5,000 boys auditioned and many of the candidates were from Spanish Harlem.
Popi taps into the plight of Puerto Ricans in New York but also in America as a whole. During the Cold War era, there was a particular interest in Cuban refugees. The strong desire to save families from the grips of communism painted Cubans in a more positive light in the media. In Popi, Abraham gets the idea for his scheme after he is thrown out of a banquet for Cuban exiles. He imagines a better life for his children if they are no longer perceived as Puerto Rican. Abraham’s situation demonstrates the economic hardships of Puerto Ricans and his scheme, albeit over-the-top and unrealistic, depicts just how far immigrant parents will go to give their children a better life.
Popi was mostly well-received by critics. David Denby of Film Quarterly praised Arkin’s performance calling him “the next best thing to a real Puerto Rican actor.” Arkin was criticized for over-acting and for his bizarre take on a Puerto Rican accent. In her memoir, Rita Moreno remembered Arkin as “a wonderfully diverse actor” and that being in “Popi was a true pleasure.” The film did well at the box office, earning over $2 million in profits and led to a spin-off television show with Hispanic actor Héctor Elizondo in the lead role of Abraham/Popi.
