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Hispanic Heritage Month — Night Two: ‘El Barrio/ Spanish Harlem’
TCM, beginning at 7 p.m.
Turner Classic Movies’ second double feature celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month features two 1960s titles whose stories take place in the East Harlem neighborhood of New York City, better known as Spanish Harlem or El Barrio due to its predominant Hispanic population. First, in the comedy/ drama Popi (pictured) (1969), Golden Globe nominee Alan Arkin plays the titular Puerto Rican widower who concocts an extraordinary plan for making a better life for his two motherless sons. Rita Moreno co-stars. Then, in director Sidney Lumet’s intense drama The Pawnbroker (1965),
Best Actor Oscar nominee Rod Steiger plays Sol Nazerman, a Holocaust survivor operating an East Harlem pawnshop. He is still haunted by his earlier experiences, which have caused him to become emotionally numb and alienated from humanity and to push away efforts by people in his ever-changing neighborhood to get close, including his shop assistant, Jesus Ortiz (Jaime Sanchez), an ambitious young Puerto Rican man who idolizes Nazerman.