I don't know how you're celebrating West Side Story's 50th anniversary, but I'm going to Wolf Trap tomorrow night with Cassie and Roger and Roger's dad. It's Al's and my Father's Day present. West Side Story is GREAT! But the best part of this present is going to be spending time with Cassie and Roger.50th anniversary? That doesn't make sense. I have a very clear memory of Tommy Boland and Jack (or was it Billy?) Thorn doing a little bit of that great Jets-dancing-down-the-street dance at the Somerton playground. But we hadn't even moved to Somerton 50 years ago.
OK. I just checked. The movie--which is what Tommy and Jack (Billy?) saw--didn't come out until 1961. We were certainly in Somerton by that time. (I think we moved in the summer of 1958.)
1 comment:
Enjoy.
I had misgivings the first time I saw the movie. I suspect that I was 15 or 16 years old. For some reason I think I was alone in a movie theather on Frankford Avenue....maybe the theater was called the Merbyn ???
Anyway, I remember thinking, "What the heck is the big fuss....this movie isn't all that great". I don't think that I slept too welll that night because the movie snuck up on me and knocked me down with it's powerful after shocks and insights into teen life.
Despite the many beautiful and many tragic moments in the movie, the one that has always remained with me is when one of the Jets tells Officer Krupke(?), "...you don't know what it's like to be my age ...". Somehow I always thought that I had it "good" to be my age, but I always worried about those who followed over lo these many years. How can they possibly cope with a world so frought with imposssibly big dangers....I know that I would not have been capable.
Jack
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