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, always worn with a long keychain that looped almost to the ankle.... the rebellious fashion of young men) had on the morals and attitudes of the people of that era.
Director: Luis Valdez
Stars: Daniel Valdez, Edward James Olmos, Charles Aidman, Tyne Daly.
Patricia Birch ... choreographer
Roberta Delgado ... dance captain
Greg Rosatti ... dance captain
Watched out of sequence because disc arrived today.
~20 songs in the Soundtracks, many just in the score. I don't know if EJO was miming his own singing or someone else's.
6th film of 40+7 (ongoing) for EJO (b. '47). His next film is Blade Runner ('82). In Stand and Deliver ('88), he plays much older.
Lots of dancing couples at a club/party, jitterbugging, not extreme athletics, but good. Music is used a lot for a stage play; don't know if that's how they staged it, or if it was added to the film.
This was filmed at a theatre (Center Theatre Group's Aquarius Theatre in H'wood), but it doesn't feel like a live performance captured. Maybe it is. We get visuals of an audience every so often, but 1 of the audience members had an acting career. I can't find his name, or think of where I've seen him.
All of the following was in the film, except we had only 4 defendants. From Wikipedia: "The resulting criminal trial is now generally viewed as lacking in the fundamental requirements of due process. Seventeen Latino youths were indicted on the murder charges and placed on trial. The courtroom was small and, during the trial, the defendants were not allowed to sit near, or to communicate with, their attorneys. None of those charged were permitted to change their clothes during the trial by order of Judge Fricke at the request of the district attorney on the grounds that the jury should see the defendants in the zoot suits that were "obviously" worn only by "hoodlums". Every time a name was mentioned by a witness or the district attorney, regardless of how damning the statement was, the named defendant was required to stand up. Judge Fricke also permitted the chief of the Foreign Relations Bureau of the Los Angeles sheriff's office, E. Duran Ayres, to testify as an "expert witness" that Mexicans as a community had a "blood-thirst" and a "biological predisposition" to crime and killing, citing the culture of human sacrifice practiced by their Aztec ancestors."
The Zoot Suit Riots were also referenced.
Good film, well written and executed, historically informative, yet with a personal anchor (one of the defendants) and the interesting narrator/instigator of EJO interacting only with the lead.
Universal, dir. Valdez; 8
