Tortilla Flat (1942)

Troubled Danny (John Garfield) inherits two houses from his grandfather, and his good friend Pilon (Spencer Tracy) is there to keep him from the pitfalls of property ownership. By this I mean he scams him at every turn. Danny has an eye for Dolores, a hot Portuguese girl (Hedy Lamarr).

Based on the John Steinbeck novel, it is set in a humble California village populated by Mexican-Americans and other poor immigrants. A comedy in the “pleasantly amusing” rather than “actually funny” model, we follow the character’s antics as life goes on.

One issue is that the principal characters are of either Mexican or Portuguese descent, but as far as I can tell only Frank Morgan, who has an Argentinian grandparent, can claim this. This should come as no surprise. During Hollywood’s golden era it was considered progressive to even have Hispanic characters. But to the studio’s credit, they did make an attempt (Anthony Quinn, Desi Arnaz, Rita Hayworth, Maria Montez) but had to settle for Tracy, Garfield, Lamarr, and Betty Wells.

A bigger issue is that the actors spoke in a stilted manner that felt disrespectful. Maybe that's because that’s how Mexican characters spoke in looney tunes. But it was very distracting, especially out of Spencer Tracy’s mouth. I got over this before the film’s end and far be it for me to be offended on someone else’s behalf. I would be interested to know how Mexican-Americans feel.

Tortilla Flat is an amusing story, with many familiar faces in character roles, and my first Hedy Lamarr film, which is the reason I watched it. She invented WiFi, not really, but read about it if you are so inclined. AMRU 2.5.