A HOT FILM FOR CHEECH : LOOK WHAT’S HAPPENIN’ TO CHEECH : His Hit Movie Reaches Both the East and the West Sides

Outside a popular Eastside eatery, wraparound lines of hungry patrons baked in the midday sun, while inside, fans and waitresses affectionately expressed their joy that one of their own had made it--and made it big. Richard Cheech Marin, sitting at a small corner table at El Tepeyac, was definitely the center of attention.

“I feel great about what’s happenin’,” he said with a smile, making an inadvertent reference to the phrase “What’s happenin’, “ which he uses a lot in his latest film, “Born in East L.A.” In it, he instructs a group of foreign nationals how to masquerade like homeboys from the barrio: “What’s happenin’ ese (dude),” he asks them.

What’s really happenin’ in Marin’s life is that he’s got a hit comedy with his new movie, “Born in East L.A.” which he wrote, directed and stars in. The movie’s success, coming on top of this summer’s earlier “La Bamba,” may signal the start of a trend in Latino-themed films that are doing well at the box office and reaching audiences on the Eastside--as well as the Westside.

Dressed in a red sweat shirt and baseball cap, Cheech made himself comfortable at the table. He started updating a “protest,” song that he had improvised in “Cheech and Chong’s Next Movie.” Mexican-Americans like to eat lunch at Manuel’s (El Tepeyac) so they order the biggest thing they can and they usually can’t finish it. . . . He paused to dig into his hefty helping of machaca.

In that film, he lampooned to his then-partner Tommy Chong about all the stereotypes people have about Latinos. Cheech laughed, recalling another verse: Mexican-Americans don’t like to go to the movies where the dude has to wear contact lenses to make his blue eyes brown, ‘cause don’t it make my brown eyes blue. That scene is one of the few in Cheech & Chong’s series of films that allowed Cheech to express his Latino roots in a manner that comes through loud and clear in “Born in East L.A.”

“We don’t have to see the world through blue eyes anymore,” he said. “Isn’t that nice?”

It’s been an eye opener for critics and audiences alike to find that comedian Marin has made such a popular and poignant film.

“I just wanna do social comedies. I don’t find anyone out there in comedy doing this sort of social commentary. So I will.”

And just where did the sudden shift in his career take place? Had he secretly been brushing up on Cantinflas’ beloved peladito (little tramp), whom Rudy Robles (Marin’s alter ego in the current film) on occasion resembles, or were his influences closer to home like Chaplin and Woody Allen?

“I didn’t know Cantinflas’ work that well. I saw him on stage once in Guadalajara as a kid when I went down there with my mom and grandmother. However, people on the Mexican crew compared me to Tin-Tan (the late El Paso-born comic who popularized the zoot suit and pachuco slang in Mexican films). That’s flattering, but I don’t know his work. However, I definitely know Chaplin and Woody Allen’s work.

“The character Rudy that I’ve created in the new film is going to be around for quite a while. I wanted to change this guy in front of the audience’s eyes. He starts off as a girl-ogling, beer-drinking, guitar-playing guy on the weekends until he gets into this situation and he has to change. He has to be sensitive to people around him and become compassionate. He didn’t mean to, but he does.

“My next film is going to continue his adventures. There’s a lot about this guy that is actually me. This film was originally much longer with a completely different ending. But I realized that the film ends when that multitude of people cross the border to the strains of ‘America.’ People will now want to know more about how this character continues to grow as an individual, as a Chicano, as an American.” Marin is also toying with the idea of using Rudy as the basis for an NBC sitcom that might be a midseason replacement. But Marin hasn’t committed himself to the project.

“Born in East L.A.” is based on an actual incident in which an American Latino was mistakenly deported to Mexico by the INS because he couldn’t speak English. It was also the name and basis for Cheech’s successful free-wheeling song and video from 1985. Yet that information doesn’t prepare one for the film or the fact that Cheech doesn’t get most of the laughs in it.

“I meant Paul Rodriguez to be the comic relief in the movie. He’s the country mouse who comes to the city and doesn’t know anything about the city. Everything is strange to him and there was a broad point to that. However, I didn’t want to make the film wild and crazy. I didn’t want the subject to be trivialized and turn into a manic Cheech running around with a hot foot. So I left just enough plot but at one point it all turns into a fable.” (Not unlike Aesop’s “City Mouse and Country Mouse.”)

One finds the song “La Bamba” in a scene where Cheech tries to teach two norteno musicians the song, “Twist and Shout.” Was it mere coincidence that the song was No. 1 on the nation’s pop charts the weekend Marin’s film was released? Or the fact that Daniel Valdez, brother of Luis Valdez and featured in the movie “La Bamba,” performs that song in “Born in East L.A.”

“It was cosmic coincidence. I think God is a lot smarter than I give him credit for. But both films are quite different. I left a lot of Spanish in my film. Luis’ effort was to take all the Spanish out of ‘La Bamba.’ That’s OK. But I left the Spanish (in) so that people who speak Spanish can get the flow of the movie. That way they don’t feel left out. It’s like cooking with salsa. You gotta have it or it doesn’t have that Latino taste.

“Some people tell me, ‘They’re not gonna get it!’ (He lowered his voice to sound like a stern studio executive.) Yes, they will. They’ll get it from the scene. You have to decide what flavor you want in a piece. And I know Luis’ intention in making ‘La Bamba’ was to hit that Anglo mainstream with a Hispanic story.”

Asked if he considered Valdez a brother-in-arms, he nodded. “I’m coming from the mainstream of film making where I’ve had great success. Now, I’m going for a more personal, almost social type of film. Valdez started out with a more militant type of film making in ‘Zoot Suit’ and now he’s headed toward the mainstream. It might appear we’re going in different directions, but we’re on the same road.”

Marin’s jovial mood didn’t contain any hint of the disappointment his friends privately admit he went through after recording the lead role of Jose Mondragon on the books-on-tape version of John Nichol’s “The Milagro Beanfield War.” He had the same lead part in Robert Redford’s film version only to later be told that Redford had changed his mind. Shortly after that, Marin started in earnest to convert his “Born in East L.A.” video into a full-length screenplay. (Coincidentally, Universal Pictures is distributing both films.)

But today in East Los Angeles he doesn’t even mention his “Milagro” experience, preferring to dwell on his new success. “I feel a sense of accomplishment, vindication, and self-satisfaction, all those things. I was going out by myself and a new direction. I had faith and I wrote that script right away and got real good feedback. Everyone who signed up for the movie did it because of that script. It just came right through.”

And while the media has questioned Universal Pictures’ wisdom in not screening the film for reviewers before its theatrical opening, Marin is quick to lay the blame elsewhere. “That wasn’t the case at all--well, at least not all. We didn’t get the prints struck until the Wednesday before it opened. I was dubbing the film until the Sunday morning of the weekend the film came out. They were printing it round the clock at three labs. The print order went from 800 to 1,100 prints once the exhibitors’ orders started coming in. We went from our first cut--chopped three hours, down to 86-minutes in less than two months.

“The reason we didn’t release the film in a Spanish-dubbed version is that it would have taken another month to do that. So we opted for subtitles in Spanish for those theaters that are primarily for Spanish-speaking audiences. But as I said before, we left a lot of Spanish in the film.”

And what about Cheech and Chong? Some viewers have suggested that the 3-D picture of a suffering Christ in the film was actually Tommy Chong. Was that an in-joke to the cognoscenti?

“Looks like him, doesn’t it?” Marin replied. “We had another picture that looked exactly like him, and I said, we can’t use this one. A lotta people think it was an in-joke. So I just say, OK, it’s an in-joke. I wish it was Tommy. I think he’d appreciate it . . . .”

He paused as if he had to set their working relationship straight. “It’s hard to say at this point if we’ll work together soon. We really came to a crossroads where we wanted to take Cheech and Chong, and we had vastly different ideas. We got kind of ‘together’ to do the video project but he really didn’t want to do that. I kinda forced him to do it. I think he wants to do more direction at this point. Even though we co-directed most of our films, he got the credit. So actually the ‘Born in East L.A.’ video and this film are my first directorial credits.”

Marin seemed happy to learn that large numbers of Latino families are attending the film. In a screening on a Sunday at a Hollywood theater, some entire rows were made up of family groups. Most were moved by a touching scene in which Cheech shares oranges from his fruit stand with a ragamuffin and his family. “I’m pleased to hear that because I wanted to do a lot in that scene. I think I pulled it off. Your heart goes out at what Rudy does. It’s the film’s turning point. He goes down there and becomes attuned to the plight of the people.

“There was a whole other ending to this film that I shot and didn’t use. I had Rudy coming back to East L.A. and being kidnapped and then held by coyotes (smugglers) in a house across the street from my house where Javier (Paul Rodriguez) is. I get him to come across the street with the money to pay them. In the end, I get married on this float in a parade. All of this took 18 additional minutes from the charge at the end of the film, but the material just went downhill.

“In the other version, Javier (the country mouse) returns to Mexico; he turns himself in because he can’t cope with life here.” Someone asked him if he’d seen the films “Alambrista” or “Bread and Chocolate”--both of which dealt with similar albeit dramatic incidents where the immigrant protagonists ultimately return home. “I’ve seen ‘Bread’ and that’s exactly what I wanted to say with Javier. Of course, I did it in a comic way, but it still says what I meant.”

And how does he feel about the recent comedy “Three Amigos,” which has been accused by some as stereotyping Latinos? “It was a waste of time not only in the way it depicted Mexican culture but that’s not what it was about. I didn’t find it funny, unusual, or interesting. It was in a slapstick mode so you couldn’t take those stereotypes seriously. But overall, I thought it was just a dud movie.” He pushed his plate away and finished his glass of iced tea. Then as an afterthought, he said: “I would like a world where Chicanos could take pratfalls and nobody thinks anything of it.”

Marin said that he hopes his new success and credibility will afford him the opportunity to encourage and help other Latinos get into the industry. “One one level, I hired just about every Chicano actor for this film. If you were a Chicano actor and weren’t in this movie, you didn’t have a card or weren’t available,” he said with a laugh.

“Seriously, I’m setting up scholarships, for Latinos, but especially Chicano writers, because that’s where it starts--the voice has to come from us. I’ll start with one at my alma mater, Cal State Northridge, and other things I can set up. I want to make it a viable way of not only getting their voice heard but to making a living, a career, if you will, at something that hasn’t been available for us in the industry.

“The whole issue of second-class citizenship underlines this movie. Without getting on a soapbox about it, I accomplished my intention by showing it and not pointing at it. There’s a certain element of society that wants to bury its head in the sand. I don’t know what we can do, give them a scuba mask? Latinos have been here since before the beginning of this country and both cultures are inextricably bound.

“My method of operation has always been to slip it in their coffee and watch them stir it in and they say, ‘Mmm, this coffee tastes good!’ A lot of people say America can only deal with one minority at a time; if this is so, our time is now. We’re getting major studios to support us, and hopefully, there will be more and more and then all the favors and subtleties of Latino culture in the American mainstream will emerge.”

Later, as he stood at the corner of Soto and Brooklyn streets in el mero corazon (the very heart) of Boyle Heights, lowriders and just plain folks honked or shouted his name. They weren’t gawkers, however--just Latinos acknowledging the pride they felt for the homeboy who had put East L.A. back on the map.