VLVL2 (3) Zoyd and Hector: Ricardo Montalban

[jbor]

A bit of research on ol' Ricardo threw up some interesting possibilities re.
Hector's "impersonation" (23.21). Odds-on favourite as the immediate and
direct reference, considering the date of release and Montalban's role in
the film, is _The Money Trap_ (1965):

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/click/movie-10002648/reviews.php?critic=all&so
rtby=default&page=1&rid=1127901

In the movie Montalban's character, Detective Pete Delanos, persuades his
cop partner, played by Glenn Ford, to join with him in breaking into the
home of a drug-dealing high-society doctor (Joseph Cotten) to swipe a cool
half a mill' from the crooked doc's safe. But even though it's a tale of
bent cops there's subtlety in the movie's moral schema. The review cited
above notes:

    The partners are viewed as basically good cops with character
    flaws, who have had their fill of working for low pay and
    taking public abuse. They unfortunately bite at the temptation
    of all that money in front of them. They are upset that a
    dishonest doctor has the respect of the community instead of
    them, and believe that money is their ticket out of their dilemma.

A few years before this Montalban played a drug dealer in _Let No Man Write
My Epitaph_ (1960), but I suspect his character in this one was Italian:

http://www.celebhost.net/jamesdarren/epitaph2.html

    When Ricardo signed to play the vicious heroin pusher, he won
    his long struggle against those heart-of-gold guy roles. Smiling,
    he said, "My only regret is that I won't be able to take all my
    children to the preview!"

In two much earlier movies, which it's possible Hector might have caught
late night or midday matinee on the Tube, a young Ricardo played a brave
undercover Mexican cop in _Border Incident_ (1949) and a marginalised
migrant cop in 'Mystery Street' (1950):

http://www.mysteryreaders.org/Issues/Ethnic1.html

    Border Incident (1949) is the tale of two undercover agents
    who infiltrate a band that is smuggling, and enslaving,
    migrant laborers. Ricardo Montalban as the Mexican agent,
    Rodriguez, teams up with American agent Bearns, (George Murphy)
    and goes undercover as one of the Mexicans lured into virtual
    slavery in the States. Bearns is killed, but Rodriguez evades
    the murderers, avenges his partner's death, and emerges as the
    hero. 

    The following year, Montalban starred in Mystery Street, as a
    police lieutenant named Morales who heads a murder investigation
    that implicates members of the Boston elite. Without preachiness,
    it suggests the resentment the suspects feel toward the Latin
    detective who, in an interesting role-reversal, has a Harvard
    intellectual/forensic expert as his sidekick. In the mid sixties,
    Montalban co-starred with Glenn Ford, Joseph Cotton and Rita
    Hayworth in The Money Trap, a grim tale of corrupt cops, greed
    and betrayal. The visual refrain of a Hispanic prostitute and
    her child is a reminder that this film -- as with many films of
    the forties, fifties and sixties featuring ethnic characters --
    had an underlying sense of message, of racial consciousness.

Re. _Border Incident_ (1949):

http://www.filmmonthly.com/Noir/Articles/BorderIncident/BorderIncident.html

    Ricardo Montalban is an earnest and convincing protagonist,
    possibly because he actually played what he was, a Mexican,
    instead of the varied nationalities he was often forced into
    over a long and distinguished career.

See also:

http://www.bighousefilm.com/reviews/border_incident.htm

Re. _Mystery Street_ (1950):

http://twtd.bluemountains.net.au/Rick/ms.htm

    Ricardo Montalban is very good as Morales, giving the detective
    all sorts of interesting shadings and complexities.

The author of this site also quotes Ricardo:

    Montalban nursed a healthy grudge against Hollywood for using
    him as an all-purpose "ethnic", while simultaneously denying his
    actual background; for calling him "Latin, Hispanic, Cuban,
    Venezuelan--- Everything but what I am: a Mexican!"#

All of these movies (perhaps not _Epitaph_) are pegged as "film noir", which
seems right up Pynchon's alley, and there are other possible resonances, or
avenues via which Pynchon might have lighted upon Montalban as Hector's
self-chosen model -- a Fritz Lang connection, the Hollywood witchhunts, film
studio politics, the anti-racism theme so prominent in all his texts &c.
Beyond the question of why Hector chose Montalban as his role model over,
say, Ramon Novarro, Fernando Lamas, Cesar Romero, Alejandro Rey, or even
Desi Arnaz, perhaps Pynchon saw something in Ricardo's personality, or the
trajectory of his career, which matched up with what he was trying to
capture and convey in the backstory and characterisation of Hector.

best


on 14/8/03 8:15 AM, jbor wrote:

> http://us.imdb.com/Name?Montalban,+Ricardo
> 
> Ricardo Montalban was quite a suave and sophisticated Mexican film actor, on
> the main billboard, if perhaps a token ethnic, in A-Grade dramas, romances,
> comedies -- in the '50s and '60s at least, even if by the late '70s and
> early '80s he had started to become almost a parody of himself as the guy in
> the white suit on 'Fantasy Island' and on 'Dynasty', and perhaps those ads,
> but he was pretty darn good as Khan the Klingon bad guy in a couple of those
> 'Star Trek' movies too -- but, no, I don't think that this is the intention
> or that Hector's impersonating a "stereotype" (which seems to me to be a non
> sequitur). It's the narrator, perhaps filtering Zoyd's pov, who indicates
> that he has begun to adopt this Ricardo Montalban impersonation, and it
> began back in the mid '60s.
> 
> As I've mentioned before, I'm doubtful about the idea that Pynchon's
> characters are caricatures or cartoons, or if that's what he intended. And
> I'm not sure how this suggestion fits with your -- I'll try not to say
> "egregious" -- assessment of Hector as a psychopathic villain.
> 
> Hector's Mexican, he speaks Spanish as a mother tongue, and he code switches
> into Spanish to accentuate his ethnicity. Ricardo Montalban would have been
> a fairly legitimate Mexican role model back then I think.
>