"Zoot Suit" is a 1981 Universal film based on a 1979 Broadway play of the same title, by Luis Valdez. Valdez also directed and was in the film. Daniel Valdez and Edward James Olmos star in their same roles from the stage production. The film has other members of the Broadway cast as well. This is a dramatic musical about a bleak period in America during World War II.
The plot is based on the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots and racial attacks in Los Angeles, and false arrests for what the press then called, the Sleepy Lagoon murder of a young Mexican-American man. This dark period is little remembered today. Some military servicemen attacked members of ethnic groups and stripped off their clothes. That led to Mexican-Americans, Blacks, Italian-Americans and Latinos rioting in LA and several other American cities.
The clothes were a style of suit that was fashionable among the ethnic groups of the time. Zoot suits, as they were called, used large quantities of cloth and materials that were rationed during the war. The servicemen (mostly white but some of mixed races as well) thought the ethnic groups were unpatriotic.
The play and this film by Valdez give a picture of the ethnic clashes and racial unrest of the time. It is a good historical picture of a slice of American history that is often overlooked or hidden in the broad global milieu of World War II. This film isn't on the level of "West Side Story" of 1961, but it gives a good musical presentation of similar ethnic clashes and prejudices in some American cities in the middle of World War II.
The plot is based on the 1943 Zoot Suit Riots and racial attacks in Los Angeles, and false arrests for what the press then called, the Sleepy Lagoon murder of a young Mexican-American man. This dark period is little remembered today. Some military servicemen attacked members of ethnic groups and stripped off their clothes. That led to Mexican-Americans, Blacks, Italian-Americans and Latinos rioting in LA and several other American cities.
The clothes were a style of suit that was fashionable among the ethnic groups of the time. Zoot suits, as they were called, used large quantities of cloth and materials that were rationed during the war. The servicemen (mostly white but some of mixed races as well) thought the ethnic groups were unpatriotic.
The play and this film by Valdez give a picture of the ethnic clashes and racial unrest of the time. It is a good historical picture of a slice of American history that is often overlooked or hidden in the broad global milieu of World War II. This film isn't on the level of "West Side Story" of 1961, but it gives a good musical presentation of similar ethnic clashes and prejudices in some American cities in the middle of World War II.