"Popi" (1969)
directed by Arthur Hiller
Starring Alan Arkin, Rita Moreno
I have not seen this film in decades, but I remember it vividly because of its New York locations, its Puerto Rican characters, and of course the fiery Rita Moreno, whom I always loved, but here plays a less-fiery role.
Popi is positioned as a comedy, but at the beginning there are so many gritty, that's-a-bit-too-true-to-be-funny details in it that the film is sometimes more somber than it intends. But because of the casting of a non-Hispanic actor in the lead, and the stereotyping it continues to push, the film hits some bad notes that I wasn't entirely aware of when I was ten.
The story is about struggling Puerto Rican father Abraham Rodriguez, called "Popi" by his kids, played by decidedly Jewish actor Alan Arkin, who earned an Oscar for playing a deaf/mute in The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter from the year before Popi was released. Here, with an uneven accent, his character is trying to raise two rambunctious, mischievous young sons in the urban jungle of Spanish Harlem after their mother dies. Adorably precocious Luis, 9, and Junior, 11, are often on their own, and frequently ditch school and run wild in the streets with other kids among the pimps, hookers, junkies, thieves, and gangs while their father toils in an almost-comic-if-it-weren't-so-sad series of menial jobs to make ends meet.
What I remember from first viewing as a kid is all the precautions the father took to safeguard their precarious lifestyle: The door had like ten locks on it, including that one where you prop an iron rod against the door; when anyone knocked unexpectedly, Popi launched his convincingly menacing guard-dog bark to scare them away; he squirreled food and supplies home from his various jobs to help them survive; and he drilled his boys on cleaning up and saying the right thing for the social worker, the truant officer or any government official who comes by. Were these situations film stereotyping in the extreme? Certainly. But I remember that most of the black and Latino audience at the Westchester Avenue theater in the Bronx where my father took us to see it could seriously relate to what they saw on the screen.
Popi's dream is to make enough money to marry his girlfriend Lupe (Moreno) and move them all to the then-relatively safer and more family-oriented Brooklyn (I guess there were good pockets of Brooklyn at the time, but that borough was just as bad as Harlem in the '70s). When the boys are attacked and humiliated by a local gang, who steal their clothes and leave them stark naked, Popi has reached the end of his rope. He fears the boys will be further victimized in their rough neighborhood, despairs that social services will remove them from his care, he worries that despite his herculean efforts he may not be the father his children deserve and contemplates desperate measures.
While on a job Popi hears about a pair of young Cuban refugees who are rescued from a dilapidated boat in the waters off of Florida by U.S. officials, then granted asylum and whisked off into the arms of well-to-do American adoptive families for a happy ending. A lightbulb goes off. In a determined furor of self-sacrifice, Popi decides that the only thing he can do to guarantee his children a better life is to give them up so they can be adopted by people with middle-class resources and values. "what kind of a man would give away his children?" asks a horrified Lupe.
Undeterred, he hatches an elaborate scheme to set the kids adrift off the coast of Miami in hopes that the Coast Guard will find them and mistake them for Cuban boat people. Needless to say, things do not go according to plan.
The plan involves teaching Junior and Luis to speak only in Spanish; to memorize details about their fictional home in Cuba; coaching them in how to manage a rowboat on the lake in Central Park; and convincing them that it's all to the greater good. Popi manages to get them all to Florida, then steals a launch, drops the boys in and instructs them to gun the motor into the the Atlantic until the fuel runs out. So with a few food supplies and strict instructions, Popi abandons them to their fates with tears in his eyes as his son screams "I hate you, I hope you die!" It's a completely gripping and nearly unbelievable moment, because it's a big ocean and how could any parent do this without the firmest conviction that he's doing the absolute best possible thing for them?
Popi returns to his hotel, agonizing as hours turn into a day and a day turns into several days without any news Cuban boat people rescues. Then, as the anguished father regrets his decision, the TV news reports that his sons are rescued from their boat, hungry, sunburned and dehydrated and whisked to a local Miami hospital for care. The boys stick to their scripts, speaking in Spanish and repeating their stories as the public dotes on the "Cuban refugees" and showers them with gifts and attention.
But when Popi disguises himself to sneak into the hospital to give them final instructions and a last goodbye, the three break into an argument in English that exposes the whole thing as a hoax. Chagrined but relieved, Popi returns to New York with Junior and Luis in tow, and resume their precarious but familiar lifestyle routine.
The film begins as a compelling look at poverty-line life in New York's Spanish Harlem and how Puerto Ricans -- who are American citizens -- struggle to assimilate in America. But then the film turns into an awkward spoof of American/Cuban relations and plays some serious issues for cheap laughs. Regardless, Arkin is a brilliant actor who allows us to feel his deep love for his children and how much pain is involved in loving them enough to give them up.
The film proved popular enough at the time to launch a short-lived sitcom, also called Popi, starring Puerto Rican actor Hector Elizondo.
Here's a video about how the two boys who played Luis and Junior were chosen from hopefuls in Spanish Harlem:
