5 Movies / September 15
National Hispanic Heritage Month, which runs from September 15 to October 15, is a time to honor the contributions of those whose heritage is rooted in Hispanic and Latin culture. TCM kicks off the celebratory month with an evening of programming featuring a few of the most noteworthy Hollywood actors of Hispanic background. For decades, Hollywood had a very troubling history when it came to Latin actors. A few found a degree of success – Dolores del Río, Fernando Lamas, José Ferrer (the first Latino to win an Academy Award), Rita Moreno (the first Latina Oscar winner) – but were often cast in stereotypes of Hispanic culture, notably the male “Latin lover” and the hot-blooded female “spitfire.” Likewise, these actors were often called upon to play Indigenous Americans and a range of non-Hispanic “exotics.” TCM’s programming for the night can be seen as illustrative of the system’s shortcomings as much as a true celebration.
Rita Hayworth (1918-1987) was born in Brooklyn as Margarita Carmen Cansino into a family of professional dancers. She began dancing with her Spanish-born father at a very early age and made her credited film debut in 1935. After signing with Columbia Pictures, her name was Anglicized and she was given a makeover, eventually evolving into one of the most essential glamour stars of the 1940s (but one who played Hispanic only a handful of times). The two movies featured here were before her major stardom, while she was still appearing in supporting roles and second leads, and she is decidedly WASP in both. In the George Cukor-directed comedy Susan and God (1940), she is friends with flighty socialite Joan Crawford. In Raoul Walsh’s The Strawberry Blonde (1941), she is the titular gold-digger who attempts to lure turn-of-the-century dentist James Cagney away from his long-suffering wife (Olivia de Havilland).
Puerto Rico-born Juano Hernandez (1896-1970) was a pioneering actor in the film industry who has been credited with paving the way for such future stars as Sidney Poitier. Intruder in the Dust (1949) was his first mainstream Hollywood studio film. In this adaptation of the William Faulkner novel, he plays a Black farmer accused of killing a white neighbor in Mississippi. Although not a great box-office success at the time, the film was critically praised and earned Hernandez nominations for Best Actor from the New York Film Critics Circle and Most Promising Newcomer (at age 54!) from the Golden Globes.
Of the three featured stars, Mexico native Anthony Quinn (1915-2001) often played a variety of ethnicities during his early years in Hollywood. In the evening’s featured programming, Quinn stars in the World War II picture Back to Bataan (1945), playing opposite John Wayne as Captain Andrés Bonifacio, a Filipino freedom fighter. In Tycoon (1947), again with Wayne, Quinn plays engineer Ricky Vegas. The film is set in the Andes but was originally meant to be shot in Mexico, however, production ultimately took place in California.
