La Bamba (1987) is an American biographical film written and directed by Luis Valdez. The picture features Lou Diamond Phillips, Esai Morales, Rosanna DeSoto, among others.[1] The drama is based on the real life events that affected the lives of rock star Ritchie Valens, his half-brother Bob Morales, his girlfriend Donna Ludwig and the rest of their families.
Plot
Richard Steven Valenzuela (Lou Diamond Phillips) is a normal teenage boy who becomes singing super-star Ritchie Valens. He meets and falls in love with Donna Ludwig, for whom he wrote a song that became a number one hit. However, her parents are shown as having problems with their daughter dating a Hispanic man, which causes friction between Donna and Ritchie. The movie also has several subplots, such as his relationship with his mother Connie Valenzuela (Rosanna DeSoto) and half-brother Bob Morales (Esai Morales), and how his brother felt that their mother favors Ritchie.
In one scene, Bob won an important art contest that helps promising cartoonists, only to throw away his prize because, in his mind, his mother doesn't seem to care enough. Bob resorts to drinking heavily and, at one point, leads him to end up crying in front of his mother's door yelling "I want to see my daughter!" in reference to the child he sired with Ritchie's ex-girlfriend, Rosie (Elizabeth Peña).
The Valenzuela family (L-R) Esai Morales as Bob Morales, Rosanna DeSoto as Connie Valenzuela and Lou Diamond Phillips as Ritchie Valens
The film also focuses on Ritchie's fear of flying, and a recurring dream he has on account of a collision of two planes that killed his best friend when he was younger. Eventually, he must conquer his fear when asked to perform his song "Donna" on American Bandstand. His manager Bob Keane (Joe Pantoliano) helps him by giving him a little vodka to calm his nerves during a plane flight.
As Valens becomes famous, his responsibilities change. He has to go on tour with Buddy Holly (Marshall Crenshaw) and The Big Bopper after his hits "La Bamba" and "Donna" reach the top of the Billboard charts.
However, every time they get a chance, Ritchie and Bob sneak out and have fun by going to carnivals. They also take a road trip to Tijuana.
Valens, Holly, and The Bopper take off in an airplane under a snow storm for their fateful flight on February 3, 1959. Before that, Ritchie makes a call to his brother where they patch up their differences. He even asks Bob to fly out to Chicago to join the tour for family support.
As Bob is fixing his mother's car, he hears the news bulletin on the radio that his brother's plane crashed without any survivors. Bob darts out of his driveway in an attempt to get to his mother before she hears the bad news through the radio. Unfortunately, by the time he gets there she stands immobile. The news hits the whole Valenzuela family very hard. In the final scene, we see Bob walking over a bridge and screaming the name of Ritchie, remembering all the good times they had together (in flashback).
We then see Lou Diamond Phillips and the Mexican-American rock band Los Lobos performing Valens' version of "La Bamba."
Background
This production had the full support of the Valenzuela family. Bob Morales and Connie Valenzuela even came to the set to help the actors portray their characters correctly, and Connie even makes an appearance as an older lady sitting next to Ritchie at the family's first party.
Phillips even bonded with the Valenzuelas and at one point actually became Ritchie to them which led to an incident involving Ritchie's sister at the airfield scene. When the actors began boarding the plane for the final fatal flight, the scene was interrupted by Connie Lemos, Ritchie's real life sister, who was only six years old at the time of her brother's death. She hysterically tried to keep Phillips from boarding the plane. She was heard to shout, "Don't go Ritchie! Please don't get on the plane! Why did you have to die?" Connie admitted to Behind the Music that she realized at that moment that she never fully accepted her brother's death.
The original title of this film was, "Let's Go," named for Valens' hit song: "Come on Let's Go!"[2]
All of Ritchie Valens' songs were performed by Los Lobos. The band has a cameo in the movie where they sang in the brothel ballroom in Tijuana. Brian Setzer has a cameo as Eddie Cochran performing "Summertime Blues" onstage, and Marshall Crenshaw plays Buddy Holly performing "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" at the final concert in Clear Lake, Iowa. They and other musicians portraying The Big Bopper and Jackie Wilson also provided recordings for the film.
Ritchie Valens 'was' only seventeen years old when he died, eight months after he signed to Del-Fi Records and produced three songs that hit the Billboard 100. Don McLean immortalized Ritchie and his friends' deaths as "The Day the Music Died" when he chronicled his reaction to hearing about the plane crash in his song "American Pie."
Inaccuracies
- In the scene where Ritchie's brother Bob is drunk and tearing his pictures off the basement wall, you can see the wall, that appears to be cement/concrete, move.
- The film depicts the coin toss between Valens and one of Holly's band members, Tommy Allsup, as having taken place at the airport shortly before takeoff, with Holly having tossed the coin. In real life, the coin toss took place at the Surf Ballroom when Tommy Allsup, after being asked numerous times by Valens to "let me fly", finally pulled a fifty cent coin out of his pocket and said "Call it." Valens was the winner of the toss.[3]
- In the scene where Ritchie arrives at the KFWB-sponsored Pizza Party winner's house, his manager Bob Keane is handing out copies of his first album. The actual album (Del-Fi DFLP-1201) was not released until early 1959 and would not have been completed at that point in the movie, as it includes "Donna," which Ritchie started composing shortly after the party scene.
- As Ritchie and Donna go for a drive, the middle of the road has double yellow lines which did not exist in the 50's. All road markings were white until the early 60's.
- The bulletin of the plane crash announces J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) as from Louisiana. Richardson was born in Sabine Pass, Texas and later moved to Beaumont, Texas where he lived for the rest of his life.
- The bulletin of the plane crash announces J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) as being 29 at the time of his death, he was actually 28, and he would have turned 29 in October of that year, had he lived.
- Marshall Crenshaw, as Buddy Holly, performed "Crying, Waiting, Hoping" at the final concert, complete with the guitar solo from the released version on the 1960 album The Buddy Holly Story, Part 2. However, the song existed at Holly's death only as a demo on his tape recorder back in New York City. The song's electric guitar solo, which George Harrison would also copy when The Beatles recorded the song for the BBC in 1963, was added by a studio musicians after Holly's death.
Cast
Lou Diamond Phillips as Ritchie Valens.
Also featured are several members of the Valenzuela family and director Luis Valdez's family, including:
- Concepcion Valenzuela (Ritchie's mother) as the older woman sitting next to Ritchie at a party
- Daniel Valdez (Luis' brother) as Ritchie's Uncle Lelo
Distribution
The film opened in wide release in the United States on July 24, 1987. In Australia it opened on September 17, 1987.
In its opening weekend, the film grossed a total of $5,698,884. La Bamba eventually grossed $52,678,820 in the United States in twelve weeks.[4]
Critical reception
Roger Ebert liked the film and the screenplay, writing, "This is a good small movie, sweet and sentimental, about a kid who never really got a chance to show his stuff. The best things in it are the most unexpected things: the portraits of everyday life, of a loving mother, of a brother who loves and resents him, of a kid growing up and tasting fame and leaving everyone standing around at his funeral shocked that his life ended just as it seemed to be beginning."[5]
Janet Maslin, writing for The New York Times, was impressed with Lou Diamond Phillips' performance, and wrote, "A film like this is quite naturally a showcase for its star, and as Valens, Lou Diamond Phillips has a sweetness and sincerity that in no way diminish the toughness of his onstage persona. The role is blandly written, but Mr. Phillips gives Valens backbone."[6]
The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 95% of critics gave the film a positive review, based on three reviews."[7]
Soundtrack
Because the movie is a celebration of 1950s rock & roller Ritchie Valens, his music, and the music of his contemporaries play a central part in the film.
An original motion picture soundtrack album was released on June 30, 1987 on Warner Bros. Records. The album contained twelve tracks. The first six songs consist of Los Lobos covers of Ritchie Valens' songs: "La Bamba", "Come On Let's Go", "Ooh My Head", "We Belong Together", "Framed", and "Donna".[8]
Other performers include: Howard Huntsberry, Marshall Crenshaw, and Brian Setzer.
Some songs like The Big Bopper's "Chantilly Lace" were omitted from the release. Other omitted songs were "Oh Boy", "Rip It Up", "The Paddi Wack Song" (written by Valens), and "Sleep Walk".
Awards
Wins
Nominations
Notes
- ^ La Bamba at the Internet Movie Database.
- ^ IMDb, ibid.
- ^ Urban Legends web site. Last accessed: January 1, 2007.
- ^ The Numbers box office data. Last accessed: November 27, 2007.
- ^ Ebert, Roger. Chicago Sun-Times, film review, July 24, 1987.
- ^ Maslin, Janet. The New York Times, film review, July 24, 1987.
- ^ La Bamba at Rotten Tomatoes. Last accessed: March 30, 2008.
- ^ Amazon.com web site.
External links
