“The Mambo Kings” quotes

Plot – In 1952, taking advantage of the American infatuation with the wild exotic Mambo dance, two brothers, Cesar and Nestor Castillo, leave Havana for New York with a rich repertoire of passionate Mambo songs that are bursting with feeling. To survive, Cesar and Nestor work during the day in a large slaughterhouse. Nights, instead, are dedicated to writing their songs and performing with their band in very small bars, just to break through. Once noticed, they are progressively offered more and more jobs. The entrepreneurial Cesar, who alternates between music and love affairs with ease and who is very protective of and attentive to his younger brother, finds it hard to involve Nestor, who is always prey to melancholy due to his unhappy love story with Maria, his former girlfriend who married another man in Havana. A sudden passion for the lovely Dolores Fuentes manages to temporarily distract Nestor from his sorrow and to make him a more lively co-star of his brother's triumphs. After his wedding with Dolores and the birth of a son, Nestor is taken by nostalgia for his land and longing for Maria, passionately pouring out his feelings in the notes of "Beautiful Maria of My Soul," a song that becomes an immediate success and arouses the jealousy of Dolores. Under the bad influence of his boss Fernando Perez, Nestor tries to escape the dominance of Cesar but dies in a car accident. Cesar is desperate but Dolores helps him overcome the crisis and he accepts to sing his brother's song in public in memory of Nestor.