All Things West Side Story

I was permanently banned from the eBay discussion boards by their "Moderation Team" for using the words "radical" and "Islam" in the same sentence (and, on occasion, criticizing certain foreign policies, overreaches or gaffs of the Obama administration).

Mmmmhmmmm. Nothing is worse than a liberal moderator.

Your apologies are accepted, Citizen Rules.

West Side Story, to me, is a film that's in a special class by itself, because there are so many different emotions that are expressed so intensely and beautifully through dance. It's timeless, not just because of that, but because, despite the fact that it's fiction, it points out so many different things that occur, even today, not only in our society (meaning here in the United States as a whole), but throughout the world, to boot: Racial, ethnic and cultural conflict, urban gang warfare, people crossing the racial/ethnic/color barriers and falling in love, dating and even marrying, despite clear intergroup tensions and hostilities, and yet, despite conflict, intergroup reconciliation, as difficult as it can be and often is, has the possibility of taking place.

Also, I've always liked action films that have both love/romance and gangs in conflict combined together to make one story, and West Side Story tells all that beautifully, through wonderfully choreographed dancing by the late Jerome Robbins.

I also like the fact that West Side Story expresses all the emotions without overly graphic and explicit sex scenes, and super-bloody fighting and "blue" language. I'm admittedly no stranger to "blue" language, but it would never be appropriate for something like West Side Story.

__________________
"It does not take a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority, keen on setting brush fires of freedom in the minds of men." -- Samuel Adams (1722-1803)

I think you misunderstood me. I was just using a polite phrasing, in the same way a person might say before they speak: 'beg your pardon'.

OK, but anyway I just wanted to talk about West Side Story. It's been years since I seen it, but I do think it's a fine musical. Kinda of sad that most people dismiss it because the gangs aren't (as they say) realistic. Who knows, the movie might actually represent the way gangs were in New York City in 1961. I don't know, I wasn't around then. BTW can I ask how old you are? It seems most people who love musicals are older (like myself).

Very true, especially in the confrontation between the Jets and the Sharks. I love the way the dance choreography looks like a knife fight done as art. BTW did you ever read the book? I did as a teen and thought the book was excellent. Which is probably why I like the film so much.

True enough, it was cutting edge with the forbidden romance of Marie (Latino) and Tony (Caucasian), ala Romeo and Juliet.

I just looked up Jerome Robbins, I've seen his choreography work in the King and I (1956) and Fiddler on the Roof (1971). Both fine musical in their own right.

Overt violence and R rated language is two reason why West Side Story should not be remade!

BTW I see you've been a member here for 8 years, yet I don't remember seeing you before.

Rules, I think you should apologize again... but this time with no snide follow ups about "phrasing"!

Good grief! I can't win for trying

You should be sorry!

Hi again, Citizen Rules. Thank you very much for your input. Sorry if I misunderstood the first part of your post. Jerome was a fine choreographer--fantastic, in fact, but he was an extremely tough taskmaster. Not only did he aim for and demand perfection from people who worked with him, but he often made them work, to a point where they'd sometimes literally drop from exhaustion. During the time when the 'Cool" section to West Side Story was being filmed, Eliot Feld (who played Baby-John in the film version), literally collapsed and had to be rushed to the hospital, where it was found that he had pneumonia. Eliot Feld is still alive today, and is still very much into dancing.

You're right when you say that if there was ever a re-make of the film West Side Story, that there'd be a lot of overly graphic violence, and R rated language. The romance scenes between Tony and Maria, as well as Bernardo and Anita would be a lot steamier, and more explicitly sexual, to boot. Moreover, since the police here in the United States have become so much more militarized, the cops would be much harsher on the gangs, prejudices would be expressed much more harshly, and there'd be much more head-knocking on the part of the cops, as well.

Moreover, during the Rumble, both gangs would be using guns, rather than fisticuffs or switchblade knives. The rumble and other fights, as well as the deaths of Riff, Tony and Bernardo, would've been much, much bloodier, to boot.

I've heard from afew people in my age range (I was born in the early 1950's, and graduated from high school in the spring of 1969, which will provide a hint of how old I am.) who grew up on Manhattan's West Side during that period, and they said that that's how things really were; the street toughs ruled the streets back then.

Thanks WSS for the reply. The above quote is interesting to know and it confirms what I had thought, that the 1950s NYC street gangs were as depicted in West Side Story (and not like current gangs today).

Can you name a street gang that was similiar to the ones depicted in West Side Story? I'm very familiar with the NY mafia from that time and all of the gangs they did business with, and i've never came across a gang anything like the ones depicted. And i'm talking about the Puerto Rican and Dominican gangs from the time as well.

Yes - there were the "B-52's" and the "Barracudas."
The B-52's were all mostly blond-haired white kids and the Barracudas were all El Salvadorans, the only thing they had in common is they all liked to sing and dance down the street - even their rumbles looked like ballet.

I know all this because my uncle (Officer Kumpfki) walked the beat in that part of the city and my other uncle "Moe" Plotnick ran the ice cream parlor where the gangs would hang out!

From research that I've recently done, there are many younger people, as well as baby-boomers that like the 1961 film West Side Story a great deal, as well. If West Side Story were to be re-made as a more up to-date movie, it would not only be fraught with steamier and more explicitly sexual romantic relationships, but the fights between the Sharks and the Jets would be undoubtedly more graphic and bloodier, the language much "bluer", and the use of guns, rather than fisticuffs and switchblade knives would be present in the rumble, and more people would be killed. In addition, the police, as in real life, would be more militarized, and the musical score would undoubtedly be a cheaper, junkier, schmaltzier form of the original musical score, or a more hip-hop, rap-type version of it.

Having said all of the above, if we wish to unite the baby-boomers and the millennials in their liking of West Side Story and other great classic films, is not by re-making them, but to have more frequent re-releases of such films back into the movie theatres, including both the few independent repertory movie theatres and the multiplex cinemas alike. Having some of these great old classic films, including West Side Story (the 1961 film) would, I believe, undoubtedly draw more people back to the movie theatres, by reducing the amount of rudeness in the form of cellphone use/texting, talking during films and distracting people who've paid good money to come and see them in the movie theatre, plus the fact that many of these good old classic movies, including West Side Story, Lawrence of Arabia, and many others, have become available in Hi-Def DVD for movie theatres, as well.

All of the above having been said, I cannot think of a better way to introduce the film West Side Story to today's younger generations, especially because it's such a rare and special classic in itself.

I’m back….with another diary about my all time favorite movie, West Side Story.

As I have written on here before, West Side Story is a film that I never get tired of seeing over and over and over again. This diary is about a whole bunch of reasons why. Some of it will undoubtedly be familiar to all of you, and some of it will not.

Three days ago, on a forum called West Side Story/Live Journal, I noticed a post about the best romance films from the 1940’s through the 1960’s. Along with My Fair Lady, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and a whole bunch of other films, some of which I’d heard of and others I hadn’t, I was happy to see that West Side Story was also included in this youtube video/list. As I looked at the list, realizing that most of the films that were listed and posted about on this particular youtube video, I came to realize that, although West Side Story was included as one of the best romance films of all times on this list, something else occurred to me:

What makes West Side Story such a beautiful and strong film is the fact that it’s a combination of a number of things. Whatever anybody may think of the romance between the ex-Jet leader/founder, Tony, and Maria (who are played by Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood), the younger sister of the newly-arrived Puerto Rican Shark gang leader, Bernardo, the romance between Tony and Maria is an integral and important part of the very story behind West Side Story.

While West Side Story is about Tony and Maria’s romance, which eventually goes up in smoke due to the hatred and conflict between the warring Jets and Sharks, West Side Story is also about a number of other things, as well.

West Side Story takes place in a rough and run-down urban area, on the West Side of 1950’s-1960’s Manhattan, in the United States’ largest city: New York. West Side Story is also about urban gang warfare, racial and ethnic tensions and hostilities, and conflict with the law, as well, as well as love and romance between two people of different racial/ethnic/cultural groups, all of which occur in real life, throughout the United States and throughout the world, generally.

West Side Story is also about rebellion and forbidden love, as well as tribal friendship and loyalties. It’s also about how our society has left groups of have-nots to compete with the crumbs that have been left to them by our society and our system, which is something that the Jets’ and Sharks’ competition for a small piece of turf is clearly indicative of, if one gets the drift.

West Side Story is also about the cruelty and hatred that the Jets not only inflict upon each other, but about the cruelty and hatred allocated to both gangs by law enforcement, but there are also very kindly and caring adults (such as Doc, the candy store owner, and Glad-Hand, the social worker, at the Gym), who try to help them, and steer them in a better direction.

If West Side Story is about all of the above-mentioned things, it’s about exuberance, arrogance, love of dance, and fun, as well, which are all indicated in the Dance at the Gym and the America scenes. The Officer Krupke scene also indicates the humor (albeit rather wry) in WSS, as well.

West Side Story is also about rebellion in the form of women/girls attempting to break away from the old, traditional values. Maria, Anita and Anybodys are the strongest women in West Side Story, for that particular reason. Maria rebels and falls in love with Tony, and Tony by falling in love with Maria. Anita, who clearly disapproves at first, unlike Bernardo, comes around to accepting Maria and Tony’s love, albeit grudgingly. Anybodys is persistent in gaining acceptance by the Jets as an equal and one of the gang, proving her toughness, resourcefulness, and her ability to take care of herself, and she finally does gain acceptance by the Jets.

The Rumble scene in West Side Story is the climax, where tensions ultimately explode, thus resulting in the deaths of Riff, Bernardo and Tony, and yet the Cool scene is the anti-climax, where hot blood is cooled by Ice, who takes over the Jet gang leadership after Riff’s death during the Rumble, after both the Jets and Sharks flee the police and go into hiding.

Yet, while West Side Story is about the harsher side of life in a run-down, rough urban area, there are gentler aspects, as well, such as the short-lived romance between Tony and Maria, the way both the Jets and Sharks romanced with their girls, and the fact that “Glad Hand” and Doc were gently trying to steer both gangs in a better direction.

West Side Story is also about possible redemption between people through intergroup reconciliation, which is strongly indicated by the fact that several Sharks and several Jets come together to carry Tony’s body off after he’d been shot to death, partly due to jealousy on the part of Bernardo’s friend, Chino, also a Shark gang member, and partly due to retaliation for Tony’s having stabbed Bernardo to death in retaliation for his having stabbed his (Tony’s) old buddy, Riff to death during the Rumble.

All told, West Side Story is a story that is greatly emphasized and told in the form of beautifully-choreographed dancing by the late Jerome Robbins, fabulous cinematography by Daniel Fapp and others, great scenery design as well as some local city streets filming on Manhattan’s West Side, and a brilliantly intense Leonard Bernstein musical score, as well as Stephen Sondheim’s great lyrics.

All told, just the right people were chosen for the cast of this great, golden oldie-but-keeper of a classic film. I also forgot to say that Officer Krupke and Lt. Schrank also epitomized the cruelty that was shown to both the Jets and Sharks in the form of hatred and insults to their ethnic and/or familial backgrounds, as well.

West Side Story, as a musical, for the reasons that I mentioned above, is one of the very rare musicals that is beautifully successful on screen, as well as on stage. The great colors that are used in this film, especially the use of a lot of red, indicate much of the passions that are ignited in this film, also.

The geniuses of WSS were Leonard Bernstein and lyricist Stephen Sondheim, whose lyrics were perfectly tailored to the street gang scenes.

(Final verse of "Gee Officer Krupke")

"Gee Officer Krupke, we're down on our knees,
'Cuz no one likes a fella with a Social Disease.
Gee Officer Krupke, what are we to do?
Gee, Officer Krupke... KRUP YOU!"

HAL

West Side Story does have its funny parts, and the Officer Krupke scene was definitely no exception.

I also like the fact that the order of the Officer Krupke and the Cool scenes was changed in the movie, in order to make the film somewhat more dramatic. It really did work, and was much more appropriate.

I'm not going to get into a whole big thing about this, especially because it would take up much too much time and space on here, but it looks like both Stephen Spielberg and Tony Kushner are going to go forward with their planned re-make of the original 1961 film version of West Side Story. What really worries me the most about this whole thing is the possibility that when the re-make of the film version is made, and does get shown in movie theatres, it'll spell the end of the original film version of WSS, either by suppression by the studios, making it only available for purchase/rentals on DVD, home video, or Blu-Ray DVD, or only showing on TV on occasion, rather than occasionally showing in revival movie theatres here in my area, and throughout the United States, generally, or by relegating the old original 1961 film version of West Side Story into the dustbin(s) of history. I would hate like heck to see either of those things happen, and I'm sure lots of other people would feel likewise.

This is to supposedly give younger generations more accessibility to it, but I firmly believe that the best way to make this great golden oldie-but-keeper of a classic movie-musical accessible to younger viewers is to make the original 1961 film version of West Side Story more accessible to viewers of all age groups, by more frequent national re-releases in selected movie theatres, nationwide, like it was for a couple of days just this past June.

There's zero need to remake West Side Story, it was perfect in the first place. But don't worry a remake will assuredly flop. Audiences today don't want to see a romantic musical with lots of dancing and singing in it. They will cry out, "that's fake people don't brake into dancing and singing on the streets"...Like the MC comic book superhero movies are so real West Side Story is and will remain a beloved classic and will still be shown in theaters on occasion.

Those gangs were so scary

They should make a remake of WSS, but make it serious: just have it be about two lovers from different families or backgrounds that don't get along. Don't know what you'd call it, but it sounds very original!