The tritone is from Ma to ri.
And the first three notes of the Simpsons theme are exactly the same.
It’s a little disappointing that, other than the overture, the only bit of music missing from the soundtrack recording is the mambo. IMO that’s the best song from the show.
I can’t think of any movies that consciously glorify gang violence. Angels with Dirty Faces. The Blackboard Jungle. Rebel without a Cause. Boyz n the Hood. Colors. New Jack City. Clockers. They’re all critical of gangs and advocate the virtues of independent thinking. WSS was hardly ground-breaking in this perspective.
Reminds me of an amateur performance of Kiss Me Kate I was in. Just before intermission, Thug #1 is supposed to pull out a gun and shoot a bird flying around in the rafters. He did, but the gun didn’t fire. Thug #1 stood there, embarassed, then looked at Thug #2 and said “Gimme your knife.”
I was also in an amateur production of On Borrowed Time when Grandpa puled out a gun to shoot the man who came to take him to the asylum. Grandpa pulled the trigger and the man collapsed. Only problem was, the gun didn’t fire. Grandpa kept pulling the trigger and the gun finally fired on the fourth try – with the man already crumpled on the ground, dying.
Amateur productions shouldn’t use guns.
I love the dancing…(Jerome Robbins baby!) …and it rawks that they used the orgional cast. (I still think they should have used Patti LuPone for Mrs Lovett in Sweeny Todd instead of HBC)
However its too…formal straitlaced Sondhiem. Yeah there’s Cool and Gee Officer Krupke (love the lyrics…" My parents didnt want to have me, but somehow I was had…Goodness gracious that’s why I’m so bad") but it’s cheesy lovey dovey lyrics all the way for most of the songs.
The Warriors?
Thankfully they moved Officer Krupke to a better position in the movie. It was one a jarring problem with the play, having a comical number right after the tragic scene.
I just remembered that one of my college rooming-housemates (in 1963) had been a dancer in the original Broadway production of WSS. I wish I could remember his name, so I could maybe find out what became of him.
It was set in the mid-50s. Very different than the mid-60s.
We’re asked to sympathize with one crew, but there’s hardly anything glamourous about their odyssey through the hellish underworld of the various enemy territories. It may not be overtly anti-gang as the ones I listed, but that doesn’t mean “Gangs are cool” is the primary the way indymind appeared to be asserting.
Actually, Panache45, West Side Story was set in the late 1950’s to early 1960’s–same period, really. The original Broadway stage version of WSS opened in late September, 1957, and the film verson of WSS came out four years later; October 18, 1961, to be exact. That being said, I stand by my position that West Side Story is a late-1950’s-early 1960’s movie/musical. WSS did, btw, remain popular throughout most of the 1960’s.
You’re not telling me anything I don’t already know. The musical was created in 1956-1957, and not being a futuristic piece, could not have been set in the late 50s to early 60s. And all of the slang (like “daddy-o”) was straight out of the 50s.
I still have to disagree with you somewhat, Panache. Back in the early 1960’s, when the film version of West Side Story first came out, there was still a lot of holdover(s) from the 1950’s.
Half my listening library is Broadway musicals, but I really do think West Side Story is my favorite. I saw the movie when I was veeeerrry young and it just , I dunno, imprinted itself on my psyche - so there’s something special about it. I think the song “Tonight” is one of the most exhilerating, most beautiful songs ever written, and I never get tired of hearing it.
I highly recommend a 1990 episode of Newhart called “Born to be Mild”, written along similar lines.
YOu definitely have a point there.
But, West Side Story is my all time favorite musical. …and it will always, be, because Hollywood does not make movies like that anymore.
I saw it over 30 times back in the 1960s’, when it was still in the theaters and before videotape and before it was shown on television.
Its even better on a big screen at a movie theater.
All this dated/glamourizing gangs talk has made me think of a new musical called Compton Side Story.
It will feature the Crips and the Bloods, as well as a musical numbr entitled “> When You’re a Crip”
But they didn’t update anything for the film version; it’s set at the same time as the original. And even today, there are still holdovers from the 50s.
This:
is spot-on, BrotherCadfael. 
I’ve often wondered if it COULD be updated. I would say NO.
They said that about “Romeo and Juliet”.