Quote:
Originally Posted by Ol' Jet
I was 5 years old when West Side Story was released in 1961.
I don't remember seeing it until I was maybe 7 or 8 at the drive-in with my parents. I loved the music and
choreoghraphy especially the Blues Promenade in the gym, The Jet Song, Somewhere, Tonight and Maria.
I'm glad we have these actors and performances on film, remaining timeless, and the sensitive,
intense Romeo and Juliet romance of West Side Story.
I could go on about Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins and Oscars and all of that, but I have a more of a heartfelt view.
I chose my screen name and composed my signature montage around West Side Story because if I could be anywhere,
anytime, anyone it would be a Jet in West Side Story—at least for a day. I like it's raw energy, it's streetwise edge,
the nuances of the early 60s, and the old school romance of falling in love at first sight.
That said....
This is my small tribute to the people that were so fortunate to make it happen and who they are now.
Thanks for reminding us that it will be on Cinderella. Long live West Side Story.
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From WEST SIDE STORY: HOMOSEXUAL SPACE OPERA AT ITS FINEST by Edmund Yeo:
"a dystopian America in which menacing street gangs control New York, and violence (both physical and emotional) and repressed homosexual attraction are sublimated into spontaneous, flamboyant eruptions of singing and dancing."
From Robert Hilferty:
"IN THE 1950’s, four gay men of genius got together and created what is arguably the greatest Broadway show ever. The brainchild of choreographer Jerome Robbins, West Side Story was initially going to be called “East Side Story” and focus on Jewish–Catholic tensions. But once the more dramatic gang war idea took hold, pitting white Americans against Puerto Ricans on rough turf on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, the team’s imagination was fired up. West Side Story was Stephen Sondheim’s first Broadway show as a lyricist and Leonard Bernstein’s fourth Broadway score (after On the Town, Wonderful Town, and the Broadway operetta Candide). Arthur Laurents, later famous for Gypsy, wrote the book.
West Side Story was a groundbreaking musical tragedy with two corpses on stage at the end of Act I. The dance-driven vehicle featured a stunning score with operatic and symphonic sophistication, an eclectic mix of memorable tunes unified through the use of the “tritone”—an interval of three dissonant whole notes that produced a feeling of tension or dread (you can hear it clearly at the beginning of “Maria”). The ever-resourceful Bernstein even included a jazzy 12-tone fugue in his number, “Cool.”
The show opened in 1957 and had a successful run of 732 performances. However, it lost the Tony for Best Musical to the more upbeat The Music Man. In 1961, a movie version starring Natalie Wood was released, nabbing ten Oscars. The LP of the movie soundtrack sold like hotcakes."
Love it!
And what's not to like about Anybodys?
