Customer Reviews

Hispanic Hollywood

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This 100-minute documentary discussed actors and actresses of Latin American and SPANISH descent in the US's Hollywood. It's a long "who's who?" that gets exhaustive at points. However, it clearly demonstrates that Latinos are not just a new presence but have always been on the screen. Two things stand out. First, this movie mentions all the Latino actors that fled Hollywood for Mexico, fled the stage to go behind the camera, or fled film and returned to theater in order to escape from limited or stereotypical movie roles. Secondly, it mentions MANY actors and actresses that have committed suicide or were tragically killed to show that fame is not all fun and glory. Surprisingly, the film focuses much more on the 1920s and 1930s than the 1980s and 1990s. I liked "The Bronze Screen" much better than this documentary. Here, there were so many old film clips, movie stills, and old interviews of actors that the whole work felt old and pieced together. The film includes Quincy Jones and Reverend Jackson for a touch of person-of-color unity. There is one Latino scholar that says a lot on Latinos in modern society and almost nothing about them in film, so his presence is odd. They interview one Afro-Latino academic, but otherwise the absence of Afro-Latinos in film is barely brought up. It is great how the film illustrates that American history affected how Latinos were portrayed on the screen. Still, there was something about this documentary that felt a little amateurish. I wonder if it were made for TV.

Likewise with Carmen Miranda... She was not "hispanic" (of Spanish descent) but rather born in Portugal and raised in Brazil. How ironic that a collection that seeks to highlight Latin American contributions to Hollywood should so casually fumble over the most basic ethnic terminology. Oh, well.

Gives a good overview of Latin Americans in film, especially during Hollywood's golden era. Worth seeing just for the movie footage/scenes from certain films. Notable also for a huge, glaring ERROR. U.S. actress Dorothy Lamour was NOT "Hispanic". Whoever did the research for this production was incredibly poor. Versions of her bio are all over the Internet, for goodness sake! Her "real" name was never mentioned in the DVD, nor the city or state where she was born.