At the movies

In Idlewild, with its hundreds of extras and large cast with spoken parts, there may have been as many as two Caucasian faces to be seen on the screen; the audience census was similar in proportion. Idlewild was 8 or 9 at the box office this weekend. In the Quince movie, we saw a wall draped mostly in orange trumpet vine but with a fair proportion of old-fashioned trailing or climbing nasturtiums, some with gigantic leaves. This movie employed many Los Angeles (Echo Park) street locations. At Manuel's, the sound-system was playing song after song from the golden epoch of Mexican movies. Some of the diners may have been accompanying border governors earlier in the week and stayed on. At any rate, many there were humming or talking in Spanish about how nice it was to hear these old favorites, sung by Jorge Negrete, Pedro Infante, and their contemporaries. Somebody should really show a series of these on the big screen somewhere here in town. As they get old, they're disappearing from the libraries that have them.