Rita was a African?
Rita Moreno was suppose to be a african girl?
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MovieChat Forums > Untamed (1955) Discussion > Rita was a African?
In those days, Black actresses were not usually given interracial love scenes. Studios feared southern movie distributors would boycott. Rita Moreno was more acceptable. She could be Italian, if necessary.
shareOr she could be Portuguese/Mulatto(Mulatta?) or something like.
shareIn those days, Black actresses were not usually given interracial love scenes. Studios feared southern movie distributors would boycott. Rita Moreno was more acceptable. She could be Italian, if necessary.
But isn't Rita black? I mean, she's Latina, but she could pass as black. It's not so much her appearance that is the issue, but the strong Hispanic accent, African people don't sound like that. It just sounded a bit strange this supposedly African girl talking in a Puerto Rican accent. share
That's because Rita is Puerto Rican!
shareI watched the movie in part because of this role. It really left me scratching my head. It seems like one of those roles that gets all but left on the cutting room floor. It doesn't tell you anything about the background of the woman, or why she would ever be smitten with a scoundrel like Kurt. Indeed, she barely gets a dozen lines.
What henryeather wrote above is illustrative. It seems like the '50s were just advanced enough that they could acknowledge that men would find darker skinned young women like Moreno attractive (she appeared on the cover of Life) but screenwriters couldn't write them into any more substantial part than "Latin spitfire" (in South Africa!) or South Seas temptress.
She does look dishy in those skimpy, comically anachronistic blouses.
I think she was.
Her presence never made any sense to me, either in terms of the plot, or in terms of her ethnicity vs that of her character.
But have you read what she's said of her roles either side of West Side Story? She's utterly scathing about the humiliation of constantly playing the bare footed 'ethnic'. Such a shame, because she was (is) so much better than that.