West Side Story (1961)

Cafe Society
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The old, original 1961 film version of West Side Story won ten well-deserved and well-earned Oscars when it came out in October 1961, including Best Picture. I’ve rarely missed a screening of the 1961 film version of West Side Story (the one exception being in mid-March of 2001, when a Sunday afternoon screening of it in a movie theatre in my general area in mid-March of 2001 conflicted directly with my late dad’s memorial, so I did not go that day.) I’ve more than made up for that since, however.

In addition to seeing the 1961 film version of West Side Story in movie theatres in and around Boston, I’ve also driven to the opposite end of the Bay State, as well as to neighboring states, just to see this great golden oldie-but-keeper of a classic movie-musical on a great big, wide movie theatre screen.

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Fun fact: in the 2020 Disney film Enchanted, there’s a dance sequence where a lot of old geezers dance West Side Story-ish with some older ladies. Many of the dancers were in West Side Story as Jets and Sharks.

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I prefer this version of East Side Story.

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But I would like to propose another thought experiment. Suppose the second time around, the show also got shelved. And they revisited the idea in the mid 60s. Would the rival gangs have been a white gang and a black gang? How would that have have been received?

Hmmmm…that’s an interesting question. There’s really no telling how that would’ve been received, however.

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Tea is a slang term for Marijuana. “My Grandma pushes tea” means that she sells marijuana.

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Even better was the documentary East Side Story, an overview of musicals from the Soviet Union and East Germany.