FILM REVIEWS : Ghosts of the Past Return to Enlighten and Delight : ‘Zoot Suit’ recalls a haunting episode in Chicano history; the 1937 comedy ‘Topper’ finds a funny banker getting spooked.

The Sleepy Lagoon Murder Case of 1942 and the Zoot Suit Riots the following year have attained almost mythic status. Several books have centered on these important events in Los Angeles Latino history, James Ellroy has used them as a basis for a number of his seamy crime novels, and “Zoot Suit” by Luis Valdez, the founder of El Teatro Campesino stage troupe, was a major theatrical happening when it opened at the Mark Taper Forum in 1978.

There was much expectation when it became a movie three years later. Like the play, the film--being shown at Chapman University in Orange tonight in recognition of Latino Heritage Month--was directed by Valdez and stars Edward James Olmos as El Pachuco, the part narrator/part Greek chorus.

Valdez described his approach as “a construct of fact and fantasy,” but Sleepy Lagoon and the riots were unmistakably his foundation. Sleepy Lagoon was the fanciful name of a gravel pit at the end of Los Angeles Street in Baldwin Park that served as a swimming hole, mostly for Latino kids. It made headlines when a fight there between rival gangs left a teen-ager dead and police rounded up more than 600 Latino youths. Despite a lack of strong evidence against them, a dozen were sentenced to San Quentin for life.

A year later, 11 sailors said they’d been beaten by Latinos on Los Angeles’ Main Street and more than 200 other sailors, stationed at the Naval Armory in Chavez ravine, went looking for revenge. They drove to East L.A., where they attacked anyone in a zoot suit, the baggy outfit favored by many young males living there.

The movie, essentially a film of the play, focuses on Henry Reynal (Daniel Valdez), the leader of the 38th Street Gang who becomes entangled in the melee at Sleepy Lagoon. Through him, Valdez gives us a look at Latino culture and the pervading bigotry faced by the community.

It’s exciting, vivid material, but Valdez fails to generate the same enthusiasm with his film that he had so easily with his play. Part of the problem was his decision to stick with the theatrical format, which doesn’t extend well to the screen. Much of the action actually was shot in the Aquarius theater, and Valdez even has Olmos stroll into the audience, a distractingly stagy conceit.

Still, “Zoot Suit” is significant as one of the first American movies to look at the “Chicano experience.” Much of those that have come since (“La Bamba” and “American Me,” to name a couple) owe something to Valdez’s film.

* “Zoot Suit” will be shown tonight at 8 at the Argyros Forum Cinema, Chapman University, 333 N. Glassell St., Orange. Free. (714) 997-6812. *

When “Topper” comes up, most people think of Cary Grant and Constance Bennett, who play the ghostly couple that pleasantly haunt a mild banker in this comedy from 1937. But it really is Roland Young’s movie.

Young plays uptight Cosmo Topper, a Wall Streeter with the deeply buried soul of a playboy, and nearly everything he does in the film is funny. He dances funny, he talks funny, he does soft double takes that are funny. He even walks up stairs funny, his body tipped forward, his little feet doing an ungainly prance on the steps.

Lucky for us, he’s in just about every scene of the movie, being shown Sunday afternoon at the Fullerton Museum Center in a benefit for Fullerton Interfaith Emergency Services. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that Grant is along for the ride.

We first see Grant and Bennett, as George and Marian Kirby, driving a snazzy convertible down a country road. They’re a blithe, unpredictable pair--George steers the car by sitting up high and guiding the wheel with his knees.

When they crash, they face their deaths with a sigh, then get on with the job of straightening out Cosmo. Somehow, Marian has realized that she and George can’t get to “the great beyond” until they’ve loosened Topper up.

From there on, it’s an escalating series of mishaps with Young at center stage. There may be too much of objects moving through the air on their own, startling folks everywhere the trio goes (these special effects were considered a big deal in the ‘30s, I suppose), but director Norman Z. McLeod always brings his screwball comedy back to his wonderful characters. After a while, it’s hard to figure out why George and Marian are so eager to go to the Hereafter. Life as a ghost looks like a romp!

* “Topper” will be shown Sunday at 2:30 p.m. at the Fullerton Museum Center, 301 N. Pomona Ave., Fullerton. $6, benefits Fullerton Interfaith Emergency Services. (714) 680-3770.