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I've written a synopsis, a review, and a diary about why the golden oldie-but-great movie/musical classic, West Side Story is my alltime favorite movie. I will now write about something else: How I came to love this great film:
I'll start by saying that my intense love for West Side Story goes back a long way, and that my initial introduction to WSS was during the summer before I entered the sixth grade. I was attending day camp out in Arizona, and a girl in the group that I was with, who'd just received a copy of the LP soundtrack of the original Broadway stage production of West Side Story for her birthday, brought it in and played it for the rest of our group. It was then that my love for the music of WSS took right off, and I fell in love with it right then and there. All of this was in the summer of 1962, when West Side Story, which had just come out as a movie that past October, was still fresh, new, and at the height of its popularity. West Side Story mania was in the air, kids went around snapping their fingers, and singing the songs on the bus to and from day camp each day. Back home, since my parents had that same album of WSS, I'd listen to the record whenever I could, and also loved trying (although not too successfully) to play the songs on the piano.
Fast forward to Christmastime 1968, when I was a high school Senior. The film version of West Side Story, which I had not yet seen, came back to our general area as part of a nationwide re-release, and played in a now-demolished cinema in a town roughly 45 minutes to an hour north of where I was growing up. Seeing the film West Side Story when it was already out of date, and shortly before it went on TV didn't stop me from falling in love with this film immediately. However, for afew years, I forgot about West Side Story and saw a whole lot of other films.
Four years later, in the spring of 1972, during an evening jewelry-making course that I was taking at a prominent art school in Boston, somebody in the class had brought in a small black and white TV one evening because West Side Story was on television for the first time, and we all gathered around to watch it. I enjoyed WSS once more, and, that summer, when I went on a six-week trip to Europe, someone in the group I was with had brought along a cassette tape of the sound track to the film version of West Side Story, which was played almost every evening during free hours. Although this particular summer was kind of disastrous in a lot of ways, it served a purpose; it re-awakened and reinforced my love for a dynamically great classic. Shortly after my arrival home from Europe, I mentioned my wish to see the film West Side Story to my dad, over dinner. The conversation about it between my father and I, although brief, went something like this:
Me: Gee, I wish I could see the movie West Side Story again.
Dad: You never forgot it, did you?
Me: No.
That fall, just before Thanksgiving, I got my wish; West Side Story was aired on TV once again. I decided to play hookey from my evening class, stay home and watch it, which I did, on our small black-and-white television. My love for this great movie was once more re-awakened, and from then in, need I say that I've been hooked on West Side Story since?!?
I'll start by saying that my intense love for West Side Story goes back a long way, and that my initial introduction to WSS was during the summer before I entered the sixth grade. I was attending day camp out in Arizona, and a girl in the group that I was with, who'd just received a copy of the LP soundtrack of the original Broadway stage production of West Side Story for her birthday, brought it in and played it for the rest of our group. It was then that my love for the music of WSS took right off, and I fell in love with it right then and there. All of this was in the summer of 1962, when West Side Story, which had just come out as a movie that past October, was still fresh, new, and at the height of its popularity. West Side Story mania was in the air, kids went around snapping their fingers, and singing the songs on the bus to and from day camp each day. Back home, since my parents had that same album of WSS, I'd listen to the record whenever I could, and also loved trying (although not too successfully) to play the songs on the piano.
Fast forward to Christmastime 1968, when I was a high school Senior. The film version of West Side Story, which I had not yet seen, came back to our general area as part of a nationwide re-release, and played in a now-demolished cinema in a town roughly 45 minutes to an hour north of where I was growing up. Seeing the film West Side Story when it was already out of date, and shortly before it went on TV didn't stop me from falling in love with this film immediately. However, for afew years, I forgot about West Side Story and saw a whole lot of other films.
Four years later, in the spring of 1972, during an evening jewelry-making course that I was taking at a prominent art school in Boston, somebody in the class had brought in a small black and white TV one evening because West Side Story was on television for the first time, and we all gathered around to watch it. I enjoyed WSS once more, and, that summer, when I went on a six-week trip to Europe, someone in the group I was with had brought along a cassette tape of the sound track to the film version of West Side Story, which was played almost every evening during free hours. Although this particular summer was kind of disastrous in a lot of ways, it served a purpose; it re-awakened and reinforced my love for a dynamically great classic. Shortly after my arrival home from Europe, I mentioned my wish to see the film West Side Story to my dad, over dinner. The conversation about it between my father and I, although brief, went something like this:
Me: Gee, I wish I could see the movie West Side Story again.
Dad: You never forgot it, did you?
Me: No.
That fall, just before Thanksgiving, I got my wish; West Side Story was aired on TV once again. I decided to play hookey from my evening class, stay home and watch it, which I did, on our small black-and-white television. My love for this great movie was once more re-awakened, and from then in, need I say that I've been hooked on West Side Story since?!?
