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September 24, 2007
César Costa
Let's talk about César Costa. Not César Costa of São Paulo, but of Colonia Condesa, in Mexico's Distrito Federal. No, César Costa that was in La edad de la violencia in 1964, a surprisingly good teen exploitation flick by Julián Soler, actor-turned-director from the golden age of el cine mexicano.
Just like in the United States, the music and film industry decided to target what they perceived to be their teenage market with a completely fabricated view of teenage life. Yet where Annette and Frankie have fun in the sun, Mexican music movies were more often dramas that shocked, showing a grittier side of reality where good kids did not always come out on top and doing the right thing could cost a terrible price. In these films, César Costa always played a character that was hip, suave and ready to sing a song whenever the dramatic flow would allow.
He started out as the lead singer of a band that did Spanish-language covers of English-language pop hits, Los Black Jeans, whose debut album in 1958 had Plácido Domingo singing backup behind Costa. He was called "César Roel" at the time, but changed his name to its current form when the band switched labels and changed their name to Los Camisas Negras. The band broke up, and he recorded three solo albums that fared well. He recorded hits on RCA Mexicana, Velvet and Capitol Odeon.
In 1961, he starred in Jóvenes y rebeldes, directed by Julián Soler. This was the first of many films he would do in the genre of wild teens looking for kicks, singing songs and doing elaborate dances. He did four such films with Soler (Jóvenes y rebeldes, Si yo fuera millonario, La edad de la violencia, y La juventud se impone), and went on to do a lot of other work in film and television. In 2004, he was named an Abassador for UNICEF, and in 2005, he returned to TV to make "Ensalada César" on Canal Once.
I know him only from the 60s teen movies, shown on our basic movie channels. If I see that he is in a production, I feel the assurance that it will be of a certain quality and style, like Doris Day and Rock Hudson films. Dated, hokey and bordering on surreal, they remain well-executed and lovely to look at. César Costa has the suave cool of Bobby Darin, and the tunes he belts out are often already familiar to English-speaking viewers, being Spanish-language interpretations of hits by Fabian or Paul Anka. Some of his hits include versions of "Tiger," "Fever," "Mona Lisa," "Crazy Love," "Blue Suede Shoes," and "Teddy Bear."
He even did a Spanish-language version of "Sing, Sing, Sing," the song made popular by Benny Goodman and His Orchestra.
For someone from the United States who grew up seeing old teen musical films, it is really strange to see the Mexican take on them. Yet what is shocking isn't what is different, but rather how much is the same. I tend to recognize more than half of the songs in these films as tunes played regularly on oldies stations in the United States. Sure, they're being sung in Spanish, often with the lyrics completely changed, but they are still very familiar. The thing that is the most odd to me is that the Mexican films of this genre are just as whitewashed as the American ones of this era. With the sound down, you might not be able to tell the difference.
Posted by crispy at September 24, 2007 03:10 AM