Welcome to the NY-PR (Nuyorican) Film Page, established in January 2008, featuring information and comments on feature films (mostly) filmed in the New York area in the 1960s and 1970s by and/or with Puerto Rican casts and crews.
Hopefully this page will provide at least some information and a "web presence" for these movies. Information (especially in English) is very hard to find and often erroneous or incomplete when it does exist. My initial exposure to these NY-PR movies arose from my Mexican film research (since some of these films were co-productions or featured cast and crew members familiar to me from Mexican cinema). However, when I tried to do a little additional searching for data on some of the movies I had seen, I discovered that "basic" sources such as IMDB.com were woefully inadequate.The most blatant example of this is the mis-identification of Love After Death as an "Argentine" film.
Who am I? It may seem presumptuous of me--being neither Puerto Rican nor a New Yorker--to establish this page. I am a film historian whose chief research interests are Mexican cinema and the film/society/history connection, as you can see from my cv here.While I might lay claim to status as a minor "expert" in Mexican films, I make no such claim when it comes to NY-PR cinema. This page will certainly be updated as I learn more, and I will provide links to other useful sites whenever possible. And yes, the information and commentary on this page may be filtered through my own experience as a White, Anglo-Saxon Protestant who happens to be a Mexican film scholar, so (a) I don't know much about Puerto Rican culture, and (b) I might make a lot of references to Mexican movies!
Various individuals have already provided valuable information but I am always in search of factual, personal, and anecdotal data from anyone.
This site makes no pretensions towards being a definitive history of Nuyorican or Puerto Rican films. I have included other titles (including some shot completely in Puerto Rico) but at this point I am not trying to create something like my The Mexican Filmography book. There are Puerto Rican film scholars (such as Joaquín "Kino" García) who can do this much better than I can. Generally, I will only provide detailed reviews on films I have personally seen, but I will gladly add information and/or links for other titles. Certainly dozens (?) and possibly over 100 (according to some sources) Nuyorican features were made in the Sixties and Seventies, but I have identified and seen only a few (hint: I am actively looking for more information and tapes/DVDs to watch!)
*shot at least partially in the NY area
1953: Escombros (dir. Rolando Barreras) ["Kino" García says this is a lost film.]
1961: Romance en Puerto Rico
1963:Lamento borincano aka Mr. Dolar aka Los expatriados*
1963: La vendedora de amor*
1964: Cuando acaba la noche
1965: Heroína*
1966: El Jibarito Rafael*
1966: Agente "0" en New York*
1966: Luna de miel en Puerto Rico
1966?: Love After Death*
1966: El Satánico*
1967: Un largo viaje hacia la muerte*
1967: Organización criminal*
1967?: Soñar no cuesta nada, "joven"*
1967?:Mami* (dir. Orestes Trucco)
1969: El Callao pt.1*
El Callao pt. 2*
El Callao pt. 3*
1970? : Cuando los salvajes aman (Tesico Prods.) (dir. Steve Morales) w/ Perla Faith, Manolo Pérez Morales [poster says "Filmada en New York] added 15 October 2023
1970: Tigresa*
1972: Mataron a Elena
1972: Sangre en Nueva York*
1975: Toño Bicicleta*
1975: Santo en Oro Negro aka La noche de San Juan
1975: Yeyo*
1975: Natás es Satán*
1977?: Adiós, New York, Adiós*
and two that fall slightly beyond our (artificial) chronological parameters...
1981: Prohibido amar en Nueva York* (dir. Enrique Gómez Vadillo)
1982: Los dos mundos de Angelita* (dir. Jane Morrison)
AND, one mystery title:
197?: Tecato. According to the MySpace page for "Johnny H," this film was "stolen by the irate cameraman Peter Pallen [sic] who was editing at Haverland Film Studios, NYC, and angered because he was not paid. The producer was Glouco [sic] del Mar."