A Rose in Spanish Harlem

A couple of years before “West Side Story,” Rita Moreno managed to do a non-musical dry run by starring in “This Rebel Breed.”

Typical high school is divided along mostly racial lines as there are gangs for the blacks (Ebonies), Hispanics (Caballeros), and white (Royals). Cue inter-racial romance and low-level rumbles. Sprinkle in a little drug dealing and a hint of corruption. Stir well with a bullshit cop element (“21 Jump Street” fans take note). Garnish with gratuitous sex scenes that don’t even make sense given character locations or overall narrative.

I’m not kidding.

Start with a group of the Ebonies attacking a white couple and flipping the couple’s vehicle on its side. Turns out the couple attacked were Buck Madison, leader of the Royals, and his girlfriend, a very young Dyan Cannon going by Diane Cannon. Buck, who is an equal opportunity racist, would normally go on the attack, but he has his own set of issues to deal with. His weed business is not moving enough product to keep his supplier happy, plus one of his best guys is hung up on that Mex-chick Lola Montalvo (Rita Moreno). What is a gang leader to do?

Meanwhile, the local juvenile police lieutenant Robert Brooks (Gerald Mohr doing his best “cool cop” routine) sends in two undercover cops who don’t look a day under 35 to pretend to be teenage gang-banger wannabes. Mark Damon plays Frank Serano, a cop pretending to be a half Mexican, half black student, and Douglas Hume plays Don Walters, an Anglo cop who tries to join the Royals in-between sticking his head into rooms where scantily-clad people dance to cheap jazz.

Lola’s secret boyfriend is killed in a scuffle with Buck Madison, but Buck attempts to frame Lola’s hot-headed brother who happens to be head of the Mexican gang, the Caballeros. Then you get the melodrama of Lola and Frank’s budding romance, as well as her desire to clear her brother’s name and put the blame on Buck.

The movie itself is a touch heavy-handed, but it is entertaining and well-acted for the most part. It tries to be a hip variation on the old “the corruption of our youth” exploitation while attempting to be cutting edge by putting the racial tension in the driver’s seat.

The most annoying element of the film, in its current state, happens to be the constant cutaways to the vaguely nudie material. It makes no sense to begin with, and it is poorly staged. The film stock looks different. The lighting is utterly different. The music is low-grade generic jazzy nonsense usually reserved for porn shorts from the time. The same lady appears in nearly every one of these inserts, so she is obviously the ringleader and should be arrested. There is even a scene where Don is sitting at a booth in a diner, then the movie cuts to him walking in on more smut, and then cuts back to him still sitting at the booth. Did he teleport? If he did, I would think that should have been the focus of the movie.

Basically, just ignore the cheesecake bits and you will get a perfectly fine teen angst flick with a racial message as a bonus.