TCM's Latino Images in Film Festival

After successful runs with their Asian Images in Film, Screened Out: Gay Images in Film and African-American Images in Film, Turner Classic Movies is giving my people their due with Latino Images in Film festival for the month of May. I have been super excited about this festival since I heard about it a few months ago on the TCM message boards. On Tuesday and Thursdays, TCM will air 5 films that deal touch upon Latino culture and issues. They also have a snazzy new site devoted to the festival (check it out here).

Why am I excited about this? Because I'm a Latina. I'm first generation American and my mother is 100% full-blooded Hispanic from the Dominican Republic. I am fluent in Spanish, I eat my arroz con habichuelas and have the cadera to prove it. What does it mean to be a Latina? For me it means maintaining the culture, learning about my heritage and embracing that Latina fire and passion that runs through my veins.

Classic films are predominantly Caucasian but it has been surprising to find out over the years how many films either have Latino characters or showcase Latino actors. With TCM's list of films for their festival, I have discovered even more!

In honor of Latino Images in Film, I'll be doing a month long series on this blog. For the first three weeks I'll be posting a review of one film on Mondays and Wednesdays before it airs the next day and will also include the following day's full schedule. I'll be reviewing a total of 6 films and all of them happen to be available on DVD just in case you don't have TCM. I hope this will encourage you to watch the films or at least be aware of the films that are out there. For the last week, I tentatively have planned a Latino Images in Film contest.

Each review will contain a summary, background information and what I think about the representation of Latinos in the film. I'll also include a rating level of "Brown Face". Brown face is what I call the Hispanic equivalent to Black face. This is when they take Caucasian actors and put some dark make-up on them to make them look more ethnic. They also used Mediterannean and olive-skinned European actors to look Latino and I also consider this a form of Brown face. I'll point out along the way the level of brown face in each film.

Disclaimer - I'm doing this purely because I want to and not because I was asked to.

I hope you'll enjoy the series!

Pamela Tiffin ~ One, Two, Three (1961)

I associate Billy Wilder with intelligent comedies that may or may not invovle cross-dressing. He had an amazing way of exploring serious issues with humor and after watching the Cold War comedy One, Two, Three (1961), Wilder is becoming one of my favorite directors of all-time.

While I am writing about this film for my Pamela Tiffin series, I would be remiss to not point out that this is James Cagney's film through and through. He was a pint-sized fireball of... fire and he steals the show! His energy is off the charts and the theme music, Sabre Dance by Khachaturyan (click to play), matches his vitality. This film is also filled with a diverse selection of lively characters all with charming idiosyncracies that keep us holding our stomachs as we burst out laughing.

Cagney plays MacNamara is the head of Berlin's Coca-Cola factory who has his sights on a big position in London. His employees are all Gestapo-trained Germans who click their heels and stand up at attention much to MacNamara's very American dismay. His wife Phylis is a wise-cracking dame fed up with life in Berlin and MacNamara is also courting hot bilingual secretary Ingeborg (and is using her as bait to woo potential Russian business). MacNamara's boss in Atlanta, Georgia sends his daughter to stay with the MacNamaras in Berlin. This is when things get hilariously complicated and MacNamara finds himself in a jam when the daughter marries a Russian communist.

Pamela Tiffin's character Scarlett Hazeltine is really superb. Tiffin is in prime form as the ditzy hot-blooded Southern belle who rebels against her parents by falling in love with any boy in sight. After being engaged 3 times, her parents send her off to Europe which in her case is like putting fox in a chicken coop. Scarlett has a charming Southern accent, says "marvy" whenever she can and thinks it's cute that she secretly married a Russian communist. I love how Scarlett gets so excited that her man is an anti-American propaganda spouting subversive. Wonderful!

Scarlett: Tell him about the wedding rings...
Otto: Forged from the steel of a brave cannon that fought in Stalingrad.

I leave you now with the film's homage to Cagney's most iconic image. See if you can guess what I'm referring to.

MacNamara: How would you like a little fruit for dessert?

Pamela Tiffin ~ Harper (1966)

This is the first in a short series about '60s actress Pamela Tiffin, with whom I have a developing fascination.

Harper (1966) is cool. Cool is the best word I can use to describe it. This adjective can be applied to the story, Paul Newman, Pamela Tiffin, the set decor, the designs, the clothes, the cars and the locales. Lew Harper (Paul Newman) is a cool private detective who has been having some bad luck lately. His wife Susan (Janet Leigh) wants nothing to do with him and business as a detective has been kind of slow. His lawyer-friend Albert Graves (Arthur Hill) gets him a juicy job searching for Richard Sampson, the missing husband of an invalid millionairess (Lauren Bacall). Harper sets out to look for the drunk millionaire along with playboy pilot Alan (Robert Wagner) and Sampson's hot daughter Miranda (Pamela Tiffin). Harper encounters a medly of strange characters along the way, including Julie Harris as an addict and Shelley Winters as an out of work entertainer, and finds out the sordid details of Sampson's life and the people in it.

Pamela Tiffin's role as Miranda is vastly different from the ditzy brunette roles of the other films I've seen of hers. Miranda Sampson is a bitter and jaded rich girl. She's had a difficult relationship with her father who had an obsession with money, women and booze. Her daddy issues prevent her from having healthy relationships with men. Lawyer Albert Graves is in love with her but she keeps him at arms length only until she needs him. Cool detective Lew Harper is new and exciting and she keeps chasing him even though he rejects her advances everytime. Then there is playboy Alan. Their relationship is purely physical, a way for both of them to pass the time in their otherwise boring lives.

Like most jaded rich characters, Miranda enjoys pushing boundaries and testing people. There is a numbness that comes with privilege and Miranda is desperate for something, anything that will awaken her senses. Driving fast cars and toying with people are among her hobbies. Her step-mother is a constant target of a barrage of insults which are fired right back at her. Miranda needles Harper about his impending divorce and he delivers the great line You've got a way of starting conversations that end conversations.

Pamela Tiffin also tests the limit of gravity by dancing to some cheesy '60s music on a diving board. Now I leave you with some pictures from the film of this breathtakingly beautiful actress. Enjoy...