Watchingwell 

                                                                              

                                                             Curated classic films

Never Too Late

            Just in time to have missed Hispanic Heritage Month, here are some classic films that feature actors that have Latino roots that you may not know. I have selected 10 actors and films that showcase their careers.

Gilbert Roland     

 had a particularly long career. Born in Chihuahua, Mexico, after he and his parents came to the US, he worked in films from the early 20s to 1982. There were many films in which he played the romantic Latin or the macho cowboy in an equally convincing manner. He played the Cisco Kid in six films.  He was the romantic interest opposite Jane Russell in a musical (The French Line, 1953).  But my favorite performance was in the film, We Were Strangers (1949), about a coup d’etat against the president of Cuba.  Co-starring John Garfield, Jennifer Jones, and Pedro Amendariz (who we will discuss later). John Huston directs a taut, well-plotted thriller.

 

Pedro Armendáriz       

 was born in a suburb of Mexico City and moved with his parents to Texas.  He attended college in San Luis Obispo, California, where he studied business and journalism.  After graduating, he returned to Mexico City and found various jobs until he was discovered by director, Miguel Zacarias. 

Along with Dolores Del Rio (who we will discuss later) and Emilio Fernandez, Armendáriz made many of the greatest films in the so-called Mexican Cinema Golden Era. He became an international star and was a favorite of director, John Ford.  Which is why he is probably best known to American audiences in Three Godfathers (1948), which is my favorite western, and I don’t really like westerns. Photographed by Winton Hoch, it is my favorite to look at, even though all of John Ford’s films have an unmatched eye for telling the story with visual richness.  This is Ford’s first western in color and he is just as impressive as in black and white.

This is also some of the best acting that Amendariz and co-star John Wayne do in the Ford body of work, and one in which Amendariz is genuinely an equal star.

Cesar Romero 

was born to Cuban parents in New York City. He appeared on Broadway and films in the thirties – he was a suspect in The Thin Man (1936), and continued a long film career as a suave Latin lover or sinister foreigner until he transitioned into television. Most TV viewers of a certain age will know Romero as the Joker of Batman fame.

My favorite is a delightful musical from 1942, Springtime in the Rockies. Directed by Irving Cummings, the Canadian Rockies are the backdrop for dancer, Betty Grable, who leaves womanizing partner, John Payne, for her old partner, Cesar Romero. Payne attempts to win her back, but his new secretary, Carmen Miranda (who we will discuss later) complicates things. Everyone looks terrific – and there’s music!

Thomas Gomez

was born in New York City to parents who had emigrated from Spain. After graduating from high school, he answered an ad for a traveling theater group and eventually developed the skills to get parts on Broadway. In 1942 he got his first film role as the bad guy in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror. His distinctive voice and acting skills (he was the first Spanish-American to be nominated for an Academy Award for the 1947 film, Ride the Pink Horse) were in demand throughout a long career that extended into television. My recommendation: Force of Evil (1948), co-starring John Garfield as his lawyer brother who has decided to lend his skill to the mob. The mob wants to take over all the numbers games in New York and Gomez is one that wants to remain independent. The scenes between the brothers are striking in the authenticity of the dialog, written and directed by Abraham Polonsky, who, soon after was blacklisted, ironically.

Ricardo Montalban

was born in Mexico City to Spanish immigrants, but left as a teen to live with his older brother in Los Angeles. After graduating from Fairfax High School, he and his brother left for New York where Ricardo won a bit part in a play with Tallulah Bankhead. He managed to land some other roles when he had to return to Mexico where his mother was ill. There he began to get some roles in Mexican film when he attracted the attention of MGM. He moved back to Los Angeles and began a film career as a Latin lover in musicals like Fiesta (1947) and On an Island with You (1949), both with Esther Williams, and one actually called Latin Lovers (1953) with Lana Turner. Although he kept working steadily in film, he was usually restricted to ethnic roles, so he returned to theater and found good variety in television. Depending on your tastes, you are probably most familiar with him in the role of Mr. Roarke in Fantasy Island or arch-villain, Khan in StarTrek films.

One film that was the exception to the usual type of role Montalban was offered was Border Incident (1949), a film noir directed by Anthony Mann. Co-starring George Murphy as a US border agent, who, with Montalban’s Mexican counterpart, is involved in catching the human smugglers who are ruthless in their treatment of the illegals who are coming for farm-working jobs.

Dolores Del Rio 

was from an aristocratic Mexican family and married a wealthy man with whom she lived the life of a socialite. The couple made the acquaintance of Hollywood producer/director, Edwin Carewe, who invited them to Hollywood. Dolores was a great beauty and found success in several silent films, while her husband turned to screenwriting. The marriage didn’t last, but her career did, through the introduction of sound, and an unproductive period which sent her back to Mexico and a reborn career as part of Mexico’s “Golden Age” of cinema. She even revived her Hollywood career, working in film and television into her seventies. Even though I appreciate her work in later films like Cheyenne Autumn (1964) and The Children of Sanchez (1978), and don’t want to appear ageist, my favorite is the film in which I first saw her, Flying Down to Rio (1933). She was the star, top-billed with co-star, Gene Raymond. Unfortunately, the first pairing of Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire was the most impressive to the audience.

Lupe Vélez 

wanted to be a champion roller skater when she was a child, but went to work to earn money for her family. Tired of her salesgirl job, her mature appearance and vivacious personality got her a start on the Mexican stage at the age of 16. Three years later she found her way to Hollywood where she was cast in several dramatic films, before she made Hot Pepper (1933) and realized she was perfect for comedy. In 1934 she made three comedies and the films were so successful that the studio created a character named Carmelita Lindsay, The Mexican Spitfire, in several films about her madcap adventures: Mexican Spitfire Out West (1940), The Mexican Spitfire’s Baby (1941), Mexican Spitfire at Sea (1942), and Mexican Spitfire’s Blessed Event (1943). She made a successful Mexican version of Naná in 1944 and another film in Hollywood, Lady’s Day (1943), but there were to be no more. Suffering through several failed romances, she committed suicide in December 1944, at the age of 36. The original, Mexican Spitfire (1940), directed by Leslie Goodwins, is a ridiculous romp that gives you a sense of her comedy skills and why she was so popular with audiences.

 

 

Raquel Torres    

was born in Mexico and began a film career at the age of 19. She appeared in several films in the late twenties and thirties, but the only one I recommend is Duck Soup (1933) where she played the femme fatale trying to sabotage the Marx Brothers. This is a must-see film, directed by Leo McCarey, and a treat to see the sexy Raquel, who retired in 1935.

Maria Montez 

was born in the Dominican Republic, educated in Europe, and did some modeling while attempting to start a career on the stage.  Universal Studios was interested in her exotic looks for its series of mostly, low-budget, escapist adventures.  Thus began a career where Maria was the seductively-dressed female in the following titles:  Raiders of the Desert (1941), South of Tahiti (1941), Arabian Nights (1942), White Savage (1943), Cobra Woman (1944), Sudan (1945). Often, she was paired with Jon Hall, who was her co-star in my recommendation, Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves from 1944, a fun, colorful Arabian Nights tale, a kind of Robin Hood in Baghdad, directed by Arthur Lubin.

 

 Carmen Miranda  

                       

  was born in Portugal, but early  in her life, her family moved to Brazil. She got her start as a singer on the radio and won a recording contract with RCA. She became such a big star that she was cast in a movie musical and several more dramatic roles in Brazil. She did some work on Broadway and found her way to Hollywood in 1940 for Down Argentine Way

with Betty Grable and Don Ameche. American audiences loved her. By the time she made That Night in Rio (1941) with Alice Faye and Don Ameche, and Weekend in Havana (1941) Alice Faye and John Payne, she was famous enough to be made into a cartoon figure, complete with fruit hat. Springtime in the Rockies (1942) with John Payne and Betty Grable and Cesar Romero was another of these fun musicals in which you get a good dose of Carmen’s act, but there is one that features, beside Alice Faye, Benny Goodman and his orchestra. The film is The Gang’s All Here from 1943, directed by Busby Berkeley, a man who knows his way around a musical.

Bananas!