MAKING BOX-OFFICE HITS THAT ARE TRUE TO ETHNIC ROOTS, BUT NOT CLICHE, IS AN ... ONGOING STRUGGLE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

The just-released movie ``Price of Glory'' was designed to appeal to the widest possible audience while remaining true to the details of Mexican-American family life. Not unlike the contenders in this very traditional boxing saga, commercial imperative and ethnic expressiveness appear to be somewhat at odds.

``Clearly, if a picture really draws big in the Latino market, it can make a lot of money,'' notes Art Rockwell, entertainment industry analyst for Rockwell Capital Management. ``But so far, that has not really been done to any significant degree. Maybe with changing times and the growing importance of the Latino market in general, we're bound to see more of that kind of film.

``But everybody likes to have a film that's going to do everything, to be all things for all people,'' Rockwell adds. ``Rarely does this happen.''

Certainly, on the question of the best way to promote ``Price of Glory'' to the public, its principle creative talents are in different corners.

Lead actor Jimmy Smits and producer Moctesuma Esparza view it squarely in the tradition of Hollywood movies that have chronicled the rise of boxers from various ethnic groups - Irish in the likes of ``Gentleman Jim'' and ``Champion''; Italian in ``Somebody Up There Likes Me,'' ``Raging Bull'' and numerous ``Rockys''; African-American in ``The Joe Louis Story,'' ``The Great White Hope,'' etc. - over the decades.

``Price of Glory'' director Carlos Avila and co-star Jon Seda, however, are more comfortable with the notion of a universally themed but specifically Latino movie that can still find a level of acceptance at suburban multiplexes throughout the nation.

``It's an American story to me,'' says Smits, who plays Arturo Ortega, a Mexican immigrant whose frustration over his own shortened career in the ring is projected into teaching his three sons how to fight their way to a better life. ``How many people have taught their next generation to aspire to something else? I could talk until I'm blue in the face about not niching this movie, making it a Latino kind of story.''

On the other hand, Seda, who plays Arturo's eldest son, Sonny, in the film, does not believe that there's necessarily a commercial stigma that goes with Latino films. Anymore, anyway.

``I think it was a lot harder, not too long ago,'' to get non-Latino audiences into the movies, Seda reckons. ``But I think now it's becoming a little easier, partly because you have that whole Latino craze thing going on. We've been here all the time, just like everybody else, but I think that Hollywood is just, basically, recognizing the talent that's there right now. In the entertainment business, whether you're an actor or a singer, now seems to be the time when it's a little easier to get that mainstream audience.''

Certainly, the widespread success of such Latin music acts as Ricky Martin, Jennifer Lopez and the Buena Vista Social Club over the past year represents receptiveness beyond the U.S. Spanish-speaking audience. But if there is a reluctance among some to ethnically pigeonhole ``Price of Glory,'' it's rooted in tough box-office reality.

Following the crossover success of ``La Bamba'' 13 years ago, only a handful of U.S.-produced, Latino-themed movies have made much of a commercial impact. And the ones that did, such as ``Stand and Deliver,'' ``A Walk in the Clouds'' and ``Selena,'' were fewer and further between than the larger, self-sustaining African-American cinema that began in the late `80s with Spike Lee's ``She's Gotta Have It.''

``The problem, when it comes to Latino films, is that we'll have two or three big ones, and then they stop for five or six years,'' notes Jerry Velasco, president of Nosotros, a 30-year-old organization for promoting and improving employment for Latinos in the entertainment industry. ``So of course, you want to reach non-Hispanic markets, because that's the only way that our films are going to bring in the millions and millions to sustain the films.''

Little wonder, then, that producer Esparza is adamant about ``Price of Glory's'' generic appeal.

``This is a boxing movie and it's a family movie, and it's more closely comparable to 'Rocky' - in theme, in structure, in values and in its heroic, triumphant quality - than it is to 'Selena,' '' insists Esparza, who produced both pictures. ``To compare to 'Selena' or some of those other films, in fact, is to fall into a trap of stereotyping. You know, not every Latino film is limited parochially to its own audience.''

Cultural authenticity, however, was of major importance to the Echo Park-raised, UCLA-educated Avila, who makes his feature-directing debut with ``Price of Glory.''

``One of the things that I really tried to do with the movie was to bring aspects of Latino culture to an American film,'' Avila explains. ``Certainly, the music is very much rooted in a Latin American sensibility; we use rock en Espanol, we use Latino hip-hop, we use Latino rap, and most of the time those people are singing in Spanish. Those musical artists are assimilating many influences, and I think that's also what you try to do as an American filmmaker with a Latino heritage.''

Avila understands that this kind of cultural mix might be commercially risky - for one obvious and another, maybe not as apparent, reason.

``Perhaps there is the perception of a language difference and this veneer of other differences that makes the Latino world seem less accessible to people here,'' Avila reckons. ``That may create a reluctance to embrace that kind of story.

``But something else that needs to be admitted is that there is a desire among Latinos to become assimilated, to become part of this world. Sometimes, I think there is a neglect of some of those other films because there is this desire to embrace the American mainstream. But I also think that there is pride. Certainly, the thing that has happened in the last year with Latin music demonstrates that. So it's kind of a duality.''

A duality that the movie expresses, which Seda, at least, believes could be a key to its commercial acceptance.

``To me, 'Price of Glory' is a mainstream movie,'' says the former ``Homicide: Life on the Street'' star - and actual Golden Gloves boxer. ``It could be about a family in Idaho, where the father is a doctor and wants his kid to follow in his footsteps, and that kid would feel the same pressures that my character does. That's something that a lot of families can relate to. But at the same time, I think that helps this film portray Latinos in a positive light. It shows that we're like anyone else.''

Few have done more to advance Latinos' mainstream media image in this country than Smits. One of the biggest television stars of the past two decades, first in an Emmy Award-winning role on ``L.A. Law,'' then on his recently completed ``NYPD Blue'' stint, he's proven that any number of perceived barriers to widespread popularity could be overcome.

Yet there have been frustrations, among them the limited acceptance of his film ``My Family/Mi Familia,'' an entertaining saga of another Mexican-American clan that never broke out into the mainstream U.S. market.

``You should be able to look at every project independently,'' Smits says. ``As an actor, I should be able to do different types of roles, different types of ethnicities and different types of professions. Why shouldn't I be able to do that?

``In this particular instance, with this film, the quotient has to do with what the film is saying, which I believe is just as universal and American as any story. It just happens that this family's last name is Ortega and they're from Arizona. But how is it different from the boxing movies about the Balboas or the Grazianos, or the Joe Louis story? In essence, what you have here is the story of a man whose dreams are frustrated, who didn't achieve what he aspired to. And what he tries to do is impose those dreams on his children.

``With respect to mainstream audiences, I think that we deliver,'' Smits concludes. ``You've got the action sequences with the boxing, you have the emotional scenes with the family - and, like everybody, I know what it is to have dreams that are frustrated.''

As far as producer Esparza is concerned, though, the frustrations Latino actors and filmmakers may feel now will soon be things of the past - regardless of how well a single film like ``Price of Glory'' plays, or to whom.

``I've got to tell you, I don't think I've had that much difficulty, and I'm a Chicano born and raised in the United States,'' says Esparza, whose films have ranged from ``The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez'' and ``The Milagro Beanfield War'' to the ``Gettysburg'' and ``Dorothy Dandridge'' telefilms. ``I've made 12 feature films, and I predict that, in five years, you're going to see 10 'Latino-themed, American-made Hollywood films' every year.

``And what's going to take us to that is that there is a whole new generation of filmmakers who are graduating from film schools and making independent films, and they're going to break through. It's not going to be an issue, it's not going to be a problem. I'm here to tell you that there is no problem. There is a process and there is a journey that we are going through. And this process and journey is the American dream. It is the story of all of the immigrant groups of this country.''

If the Hollywood tradition of boxing films is any indication, that's a winning combination indeed.

CAPTION(S):

5 photos

Photo:

(1 -- 2 -- cover -- color) Jimmy Smits in 'Price of Glory'

(3 -- 4) Jon Seda portrays a young boxer, with Jimmy Smits, above left, as his father, in ``Price of Glory.'' Smits contends that although the film is about a Mexican-American family, ``It's an American story to me. How many people have taught their next generation to aspire to something else?''

(5) Director Carlos Avila says he tried ``... to bring aspects of Latino culture to an American film,'' in ``Price of Glory.''