West Side Story and the Fox

Atlanta's Fox Theater: This historic 4500-seat theater - designed as a Yaarab Temple, finished as a movie palace, rescued from destruction in the 1970's - is preserved today as the penultimate of public performance spaces. This theater has too many superlatives to list on this humble blog, so follow the links and get lost in the history and detail of this amazing place. [more]

Today, "The Fabulous Fox" plays host to concerts, broadway plays, operas, and the ballet, but every summer, for a few weeks, the Fox returns to its roots and people can once again enjoy the space as it was meant to be enjoyed, singing along with the 4000-pipe organ and watching movies on the "biggest screen in Atlanta". Last night, we all escaped from Tropical Depression Dennis and into "West Side Story".

SIDEBAR: We "escaped" into the Fox after walking through what started as a light rain, but would have given Noah pause by the time we arrived 10 minutes later. Note to self - the theater bathroom hand blowers, while adequate for drying one's hands, will not remove gallons of water from one's jeans, even after 15 minutes of "vigorous rubbing"...

WEST SIDE STORY TRIVIA: Won 10 of 11 Oscar nominations for 1961, including "Best Picture" and "Best Director" (the only instance of 2 directors sharing the award - Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins). [Academy Awards] - My friend L still hated it.

CENSORSHIP: The line "Birth to Earth" spoken by Riff to declare his undying, lifelong "love" for Tony was orginally "sperm to worm" in the play. Similarly, right before Anita and the Sharks sing "America", one of the girls says "you came with your arms open, your hearts open", to which one of the guys replies "you came with your mouth open". On stage in high school, I remember him saying "with your pants open". The trivia site states the lyric was "legs open", so BHS was a little more liberal with its censorship than the movie industry [my high school memory]

ASHLEY SIMPSON AWARD: "Rita Moreno's singing voice was dubbed by Betty Wand only for "A Boy Like That" since it was below her range. Moreno sang "America" and "Quintet" herself." [imdb.com]
- I forgive her. She's still my favorite actor in the film; maybe it has something to do with her winning the Oscar...or her Grammy for 'Electric Company'"...or her multiple Tony Awards... or her Emmy's for 'Sesame Street' and 'Rockford Files'.

EMINENT DOMAIN: The opening street sequences were shot in upper west side Manhattan, where Lincoln Center stands today. The neighborhood was condemned, giving the film crews a little more free rein. [neighbor D]

COSTUMES: Watching the film, we marvelled at how tight the guys pants were - "The boys' jeans were dyed, re-dyed and 'distressed,' using special elastic thread to allow for the severity of the choreography." [imdb.com]

JEWELRY: I noticed that Maria/Natalie wore the same bracelet on her left wrist throughout the film - "...she had injured her wrist on the set of a previous movie, causing an unsightly bone protrusion on her wrist. She wore the bracelet to hide the injury." [imdb.com]

OTHER UNRELATED MOVIES: Took the kids to see "March of the Penguins"; terrific French/National Geographic movie about Emperor Penguins who leave the water every March to walk 70 miles to their winter breeding grounds. Once there, they pair up, mate, and the female lays 1 egg which is then transferred to the male so she can waddle the 70 miles back to the edge of the ice shelf (with 1/3 less body weight) while dad keeps the egg warm in the -100 deg weather! She eats and comes back just in time for the egg to hatch so she can feed the newborn while dad goes to get a bite (with 1/2 less body weight). This goes on all winter until November when the chick is independent and ice has melted nearly all the way back to the breeding ground. Beautiful.

Other colors from the neighborhood...