Posted 4:55 PM by Gene

At AIN'T IT COOL NEWS 2 -- er, THE CORNER, AMERICA'S AD-BLURB COPYWRITER calls the film version of West Side Story "an unintentional laff riot." I've never seen it, but I think I know the show well enough to surmise why. Part of it is the plot -- the angels-in-the-ghetto routine, which went back to beyond the Yellow Kid and probably showed its age even in 1957, grafted uncomfortably onto Shake's great comedy Romeo and Juliet, which, lest we forget, was a coincidence about a couple of uppity upper-class families. Part of it is Lenny and his NOTORIOUS liberal good intentions. (THIS probably accounts for JPOD's CONDEMNATION.) A much bigger part of it, I fear, is Jerome Robbins. We know the producers got a great opportunity to location-shoot before some decayed West Side tenements soon to be rubbled to make way for Lincoln Center (!), and Robbins couldn't resist: he had some overaged gang-members put on the hoity-toity dance moves of the stage show. Even Studs Terkel in his wildest writing could not imagine ghetto people this, er, eloquent. The pretentious choreography underlines the pretentious good intentions from the get-go. I have long believed the show is salvageable for a mass medium, but it would take work. For one thing, it needs some HUMOR -- R & J has it, however intentionally unfunny -- and perhaps a few PARENTS. Beyond that, the opening is made for television. Rather than have a ballet troupe practice its fancy French words I'd have kids do a street rumble like a slowly evolving chase scene, with the choreography heavily disguised -- and rather than staging set pieces in front of terrific scenery, have it shot through portable cameras. I fear done the wrong way it would be every bit the visual cliche of MTV and its successors, but done right it might get rid of some of those unwanted laughs. I don't know about having kids sing -- I can hear too many high-school extravaganzas in the back of my head -- but even this might be preferable to Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood LIP-SYNCHING. I've a sneaky hunch if the INTERNET MOVIE ever becomes more than a fad, this may do it.

P. S. West Side Story didn't win the Tony for best musical of '57. THE MUSIC MAN did.

(Second link fixed 3/9/2008)