Zoot Suit (1981)

User Rating:

6.4/10   

Director:

Luis Valdez

Writer:

Luis Valdez (play)

Release Date:

January 1982 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Musical

Plot:

A kind of musical accompanying the story of the early 1940's and the effect that the "zoot suit" (a man's suit of long jacket and pegged pants...

Plot Keywords:

Zoot Suit | 1940s | Mexican American | Murder | Wrongful Conviction

Awards:

Nominated for Golden Globe.

Cast

Daniel Valdez	...	Henry Reyna
Edward James Olmos	...	El Pachuco
Charles Aidman	...	George Shearer
Tyne Daly	...	Alice Bloomfield
John Anderson	...	Judge F.W. Charles
Abel Franco	...	Enrique
Mike Gomez	...	Joey / Jose Torres
Alma Martínez	...	Lupe (as Alma Rosa Martínez)
Francis X. McCarthy	...	Press (as Frank McCarthy)
Lupe Ontiveros	...	Dolores
Ed Peck	...	Lieutenant Edwards
Robert Phalen	...	District Attorney
Tony Plana	...	Rudy
Rose Portillo	...	Della
Marco Rodríguez	...	Smiley / Ismael Torres

Runtime:

103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Sensurround

Certification:

Australia:M | Singapore:PG | UK:15 | USA:R

Company:

Universal Pictures

Trivia:

The character of Henry Reyna was based upon the real-life zoot-suiter Henry "Hank" Leyvas, who was tried and wrongfully convicted for first-degree murder of Jose Diaz, after an incident on 1 August 1942. The film and the play that preceded it conformed to the facts of the actual case. The appeals court overturned the earlier verdict and Reyna and his friends were set free in 1945, following the Zoot Suit Riots and the banning of zoot suits in Los Angeles (courtesy of the Los Angeles City Council) in 1944. Many futures and outcomes for Reyna were given in the film and the play. In real life, Leyvas was convicted some years later for selling drugs. He served ten years and was released, and soon opened a family restaurant. He died of a heart attack in 1971.

Quotes:

El Pachuco: The Press distorted the very meaning of the word "Zoot Suit." All it is for you guys is another way to say Mexican

Soundtrack:

Pachuco Suave

Maybe I Was Expecting Too Much...

Myabe I was expecting too much. After hearing about the play for so many years, I finally was able to get my hands on watching the film version. First off, its not really a movie per se as much as its a filmed version of the play. To me, this was the truly distracting thing of the movie. Two totally different mediums, totally different ways of telling a story.

The dialog at times came off as stilted and trying too hard to sound like *authentic* Hispanic speak. Eh. To each their own. Olmoses performance in it is astounding, coming off as extremely despicable.

Some rather nit picky things. It bothered me when Olmos comes out as the (heavily implied) Aztec native. The connection is made that a true Mexican is one who is touch with their native roots, a rather narrow definition in my opinion. Also, there is almost absolutely no feminine perspective in the entire movie. None, other than the stereotypical loca chica drunk. Those were the things that I had the biggest problems with.

Henry's own demons, for me at least, is what makes this movie worth watching, and the manipulation of even then modern cinema could have done a lot with that, but squandered it. We see him caught between being one who is in between the hyphen (the idea as a Mexican-American, he is neither Mexican nor American, but in between) asking if he should listen to his conscience or El Pachuco (or even if his conscience is El Pachuco, which is a personal theory of mine, but opens a whole 'nother can of worms that ties into the Aztec thing that is enough for a thesis paper)

Fantastic soundtrack, and if you should happen to have the luck of coming across it, than I would definitely buy it, as its excellent.

All and all, its an interesting perspective on Mexican-American lives in LA during the 1940's, and a small glimpse of the Zoot Suit Riots.

Final grade: C+ for effort.