The Mambo Kings

The Mambo Kings is a 1992 FrenchAmerican drama film directed by Arne Glimcher. It is an adaptation of Oscar Hijueloss 1989 Pulitzer Prizewinning novel The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love. The film stars Armand Assante and Antonio Banderas as Cesar and Nestor Castillo, brothers and aspiring musicians who flee from Cuba to America in the hopes of reviving their failed musical careers. The Mambo Kings marks the directing debut of Glimcher and features Banderas in his first Englishlanguage role.

In the early 1950s, Cuban brothers and musicians Cesar Armand Assante and Nestor Castillo Antonio Banderas flee from Havana, Cuba after getting into a violent dispute with the mobster owners of a club where they performed. Eventually ending up in New York City, the brothers work at menial jobs while attempting to revive their musical careers. At a nightclub where Cesar briefly crashes the act of mambo star Tito Puente, they make new friends and connections, as well as meeting cigarette girl Lanna Lake Cathy Moriarty, who falls quickly into a love affair with Cesar.Nestor, in the meantime, remains oblivious to other women while continually composing his ode to his lost Cuban love, Maria Talisa Soto. He writes version after version of the same ballad, Beautiful Maria of My Soul, until by chance one day he encounters Delores Maruschka Detmers, a shy but attentive young woman who wishes to become a schoolteacher. When she becomes pregnant, they decide to get married. ........

Source: Wikipedia