West Side Story

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I went to see it at the MOMA the other day on a whim - I hadn't seen it since I was maybe 15 or so, and at the time I probably made fun of it for having dancing street gangs, in spite of always liking the music.

But I was so wrong - dancing street gangs are the awesome! And what a generally great film! All the outdoor stuff is visually stunning. Great camerawork, great sets. I noticed most of the corny, boring parts are indoors (the bridal shop scene, etc.) I also didn't remember the near-gang-rape scene - damn, pretty intense for a movie musical from 1961.

― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 05:18 (seventeen years ago) link

Haha, "the awesome = typo

― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 05:22 (seventeen years ago) link

"the awesome" = typo, rather

― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 05:22 (seventeen years ago) link

it's rly rly long tho...

― Commander JimmyMod of TEAM COURAGE (JimmyMod), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 05:26 (seventeen years ago) link

Yes. And parts of it drag A LOT. The first 15 minutes or so are probably the best, though the dance scene is certainly great as is the rumble.

― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 05:28 (seventeen years ago) link

The fucking prelude alone seems like two hours.

― PPlains (PPlains), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 05:30 (seventeen years ago) link

yeah... i had to choose a dance scene from this to analyze for a dance on film class i took and you really notice how much goes into it. pretty amazing!

― tehresa (tehresa), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 05:32 (seventeen years ago) link

I love the music and the dancing. My 8 year old son was really interested when I had the DVD out from the library earlier this year. I had a hard time explaining about how terrible gangs were, though, since all they seemed to do was sing and dance a lot.

― Sara Robinson-Coolidge (Sara R-C), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 05:40 (seventeen years ago) link

ihttp://991.com/newgallery/Alice-Cooper-Schools-Out---Des-347486.jpg

― Factory Sample Not For Sale (Factory Sample Not For Sale), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 06:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Titles were designed by Saul Bass, apparently. Only just learned that.

― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 06:47 (seventeen years ago) link

Obviously a lot of the film is corny - but I guess I went in expecting that so I was quite happily surprised by how good certain elements of it are.

― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 06:54 (seventeen years ago) link

it's rly rly long tho...

Haven't seen it in eons, but I bet it SEEMS a lot shorter than Moulin Rouge!

That a guy who'd never directed a musical (Robert Wise, tho I believe Jerome Robbins essentially directed the dancers) was hired rather than a Gene Kelly or Minnelli led to WSS ushering in the era of elephantine musical movies -- as someone wrote of the My Fair Lady film, not so much adapted as embalmed. (with dubbed movie-star actresses, no less)

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 14:44 (seventeen years ago) link

i was tony in high school. i forgot the words to "make of our hands one hand" - the look on maria's face was priceless! whatta clunker of a song, anyway. to think that we did that, but not "boy, boy, crazy boy" or whatever.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:01 (seventeen years ago) link

Aw, you cut "Cool"? That's like the best song in the whole thing.

― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:04 (seventeen years ago) link

i pref "Gee Officer Krupke"

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:06 (seventeen years ago) link

We never actually produced WSS at school (though we did do Oliver and Oklahoma) but in English class we had to read it as a play, as per Shakespeare, and recite all the lyrics as blank verse; bizarre and not very profitable.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:10 (seventeen years ago) link

a west-coast friend of mine once grabbed Arthur Laurents (writer of the libretto) by the neck and threatened to pummel him, which he woulda deserved just for the druggist's "You kids make this world lousy!"

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:14 (seventeen years ago) link

the night prior to opening, i split a fifth and a pint of tequila with three friends of mine and woke up the next morning with hickies on my neck. as the make-up people were deciding how to erase them, i had to excuse myself to throw up. show business, baby!

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:34 (seventeen years ago) link

Morbius I hate your friend, that is just a shitty thing to do. I love that line. (Dude, it was 1960!) And I love this show, although I confess I like the flow of the movie better than the play. The cinematography alone makes it one of the greatest American movies of all time. We just re-watched it a week ago -- I forgot how awesome Tucker Smith is as Ice, he's like Fratboy Gone Bad.

― Matt Cibula (Formerly, the Haikunym), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:38 (seventeen years ago) link

Poor Doc - he just wants to run his store. Lay off him, will ya?

― Hurting (A-Ron Hubbard), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:43 (seventeen years ago) link

uh Matt, he threatened Laurents becuz of a shitty thing he'd done to him, not cuz of the WSS dialogue...

Laurents also did the script for Rope -- now THAT coulda been a musical!

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:45 (seventeen years ago) link

no jitterbugging, no credibility

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:49 (seventeen years ago) link

of course there's no reason they couldn't jitterbug in rope: the musical

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:55 (seventeen years ago) link

on top of the trunk!

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 15:58 (seventeen years ago) link

well that makes it better I guess, Morbs, but I don't think I deserve your "uh" there, you were the one who yoked unrelated stuff together like that

also Marcello what kind of profit were you hoping to make from reading West Side Story in class? we had to read a lot more boring (and a lot more bizarre) shit than that in high school

― Matt Cibula (Formerly, the Haikunym), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:01 (seventeen years ago) link

silas marner: the musical

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:07 (seventeen years ago) link

scarlett
some secrets are too hott to keep!

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:11 (seventeen years ago) link

Now I'm dying for Rope: The Musical.

― Leon Czolgosz (Leon), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:24 (seventeen years ago) link

Literally.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:30 (seventeen years ago) link

not running, but I must've rememberedit:

http://www.bailiwick.org/calendar/show_detail.php?ID=205

― Bill Weber (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:32 (seventeen years ago) link

Most of the movie takes place during a party, it would be perfect!

xpost

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:33 (seventeen years ago) link

Although in the movie, it's like the worst party ever.

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:33 (seventeen years ago) link

I can't think of any criticism of the film other than it just ... just ... doesn't do it for me.

― Madchen (Madchen), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:37 (seventeen years ago) link

do you know they darkened Rita Moreno's skin cuz she wasn't 'Latin enough'?

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:39 (seventeen years ago) link

I've never seen it, I don't like knowing about sad endings...but really, even I kind of can't believe I haven't watched it for the group dance numbers!

― Laurel (Laurel), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:40 (seventeen years ago) link

do you know they darkened Rita Moreno's skin cuz she wasn't 'Latin enough'?

but...Natalie Wood?

(favorite musical ever, which means a lot coming from me.)

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 16:45 (seventeen years ago) link

i pref "Gee Officer Krupke"

-- Dr M (wjwe...), December 5th, 2006. (later)

I still say they're singing "fuckin'" at the end of that song.

― PPlains (PPlains), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 17:41 (seventeen years ago) link

they say "krup you", which was pretty racy at the time!

― Euai Kapaui (tracerhand), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 17:44 (seventeen years ago) link

horseshoe, over Donen & Minnelli? no way!

also, fastest-disappearing Oscar winner ever... George Chakiris? (He was in The Young Girls of Rochefort and not much else of note subsequently.)

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 17:50 (seventeen years ago) link

I meant more favorite musical than movie musical. but I think it's my favorite movie musical, too.

― horseshoe (horseshoe), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 18:01 (seventeen years ago) link

sometimes I think all modern Indian cinema is based on "West Side Story"

― Matt Cibula (Formerly, the Haikunym), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 18:08 (seventeen years ago) link

I saw West Side Story for the first time when I was 8, and I think I cried for about 45 minutes after the end of the movie. I think my mom threatened me with some kind of punishment if I didn't stop crying. It was just too tragic! Though I'm kind of over it now. Kind of.

― Leon Czolgosz (Leon), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 18:13 (seventeen years ago) link

Absurdly, I've never seen the film. I looove the music, though: I have the original cast recording on an old cassette. Can't do much better than Bernstein + Sondheim.

My high school used to put on this "cabaret night" every spring -- you had to audition for a performance slot -- and there was always a tradition of an all-male chorus, which did a whole choreographed routine. One year we did "Standin' on the Corner (Watchin' All the Girls Go By)" and the next we did "Gee Officer Krupke."

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 18:14 (seventeen years ago) link

Love the movie, but this was the first place I ever heard the music:
http://ec2.images-amazon.com/images/P/B000003GV4.01._AA240_SCLZZZZZZZ_.jpg

― Marmot (marmotwolof), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 19:28 (seventeen years ago) link

That's funny---I worked making donuts on the graveyard shift and all my fellow bakers were only into really bullshit metal ala Hatebreed. So pretty much any night I got to choose the music it was WEST SIDE STORY time! It's my favorite musical soundtrack ever. I don't see why anyone likes GREASE when WSS exists.

Also, whenever me & the boy want to say we suspect a girl is a girl-like, we say 'she could be cast as Anybodys,' who I desperatley wanted to play in the HS production. I did not even make it to the chorus.

― Abbott (Abbott), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 22:40 (seventeen years ago) link

This is my favorite musical of all-time. I played Action in our high school production (oh the lols when the only black kid in the cast got to tell a white kid playing a Puerto Rican "YOU'RE TOO DARK TO PASS!") and got to sing "Gee, Officer Krupke"; you'll have to ask Sara, John and FB whether I was any good at it or not. (Heh)

I like the stage show a lot more than the movie because I don't like the changes they made to the song order and who sang them for the movie.

― Jesus Dan (dan perry), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 22:45 (seventeen years ago) link

haven't seen in ages but I like it fine... tho I would probably rate all of my favorite Fosse material ahead of it.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 22:50 (seventeen years ago) link

(xpost)Dan was great, and so were John and FB (if memory serves, John was a Shark and FB a Jet...). I would never lie about West Side Story. But I will admit that I watched it from backstage, not from the audience.

Dan, I don't remember that line, but I'm laughing now...

― Sara Robinson-Coolidge (Sara R-C), Tuesday, 5 December 2006 23:02 (seventeen years ago) link

People still call them librettos?

― Eric H. (Eric H.), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 04:45 (seventeen years ago) link

...Yes?

― Jesus Dan (dan perry), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 05:01 (seventeen years ago) link

If you call it a "book," many ppl get confused.

I was thinking of comedian Bob Smith's line about how the stories of musicals all stink, and that he lives in fear of someone opening a libretto bar.

― Dr M (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 6 December 2006 16:05 (seventeen years ago) link

Wood movies - West Side Story vs. Brainstorm

West Side Story does not feature an old man having 800 orgasms in a row, I rest my case.

― JTS (JTS), Thursday, 7 December 2006 21:51 (seventeen years ago) link

I might see Chita Rivera (the original Anita) LIVE next weekend, sooooo excited.

― tokyo rosemary (rosemary), Friday, 8 December 2006 03:14 (seventeen years ago) link

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