John F. Kennedy was president....it was August 4, 1962....only two months before the Cuban Missile Crisis....almost sixty years ago....I was twelve....and my older cousin was taking me to see West Side Story in a Baltimore theater....which as you know had been an Academy Award winning popular movie for most of the year. Funny how you remember these things....my cousin stopped at a stop sign....(or a red light....I can't remember)....as the radio announced that Marilyn Monroe had died.
Most know of what happened under the overpass in that first film.... Bernardo and the Sharks pray before the rumble....but he later shouts with hate at the Jets...."Every one of you hates every one of us and we hate you right back....let's get at it!"....Riff is getting the better hand on Bernardo but Tony pulls him away.....and Riff is then stabbed....Tony....blind with rage at what happened....stabs Bernardo....Chino later shoots Tony!
My wife and I went to see a matinee showing of Steven Spielberg's new West Side Story. I did my research before going to see it....which is what I do with every movie that we go to see. If Spielberg altered the story line....or added a 'woke' interpretation.....I would have no interest in seeing the remake....but the research showed that it was basically the same story line....which it turned out to be. I read enough reviews to know that I was going to like it....and I....we....did. Every actor was a good choice....the music wasn't altered....the message was the same...in that we generally find out too late that hate kills.
All of the characters were more developed than in the 1961 film. Riff was such a troubled young man in Spielberg's film that the director may not have had him in the comedic Officer Krupke scene because it would have been too bizarre to transition to clowning around....where Russ Tamblyn's Riff fit the routine well.
Before I make this comment I would ask you to keep in mind that I have read 90 books now on Donald Trump....including a number of them from his renovating and tower building days....so when in this film you could see tenements being torn down in order for rich people to live in luxury....I saw Trump....but it was another person of note....of even fame and celebrity....that came much more to mind.
There were real gangs fighting it out in New York City in the mid-50s....one of them was the Egyptian Kings....that Riff kept bragging about running out of town in Spielberg's version....and there was a trial that shocked America....(although in today's violence it would probably be page 4....section two.) It would be as if Riff or Bernardo were on trial....about to spend the rest of their life in prison.....when a young preacher walked in the courtroom and told the judge that he wanted to speak to the gang members....upon which the judge immediately threw him out of the courtroom.....but the photographs made Life Magazine....and just as the Hearst's order to 'Puff Graham' catapulted the skinny North Carolina preacher into prominence....the magazine photos catapulted skinny Pentecostal preacher David Wilkerson into prominence.
Wilkerson did eventually meet and challenge some of those young gang members....and one....who would be like Bernardo from the film....was in real life....Nicky Cruz....leader of the Mau Maus....who would become....and is today at 83 years old....a Pentecostal evangelist. There are too many anecdotes to even try to mention concerning the film and real life events....but I will say this about David Wilkerson. After watching that film in Baltimore with my cousin....my mother and I moved back to Pittsburgh....and I was raised from that time on....a couple hundred yards from where David's wife was raised....and I spent a couple of summers ....once again only a couple hundred yards from where David himself was raised when he met his wife. David Wilkerson authored The Cross And The Switchblade....started national and international ministries....and I have 100 of his sermons on cassette in my basement....small world.
So I'm posting all of this trivial stuff to lead up to this....We are today in America no more than two gangs....the Jets....(R).....and the Sharks....(D)....hating each other and always doing nothing else but looking for a fight. Was it not Obama who famously threatened...."If they bring knives.....we will use guns.".....and was it not Rand Paul who was jumped in his front yard....and now jumps Anthony Fauci every chance he gets....and did not Trump more than once tell his gang to rough up protesters.....and was it not he who said...."I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody....and I wouldn't lose any voters....OK?" Could he have meant Fifth Avenue on the Upper West Side of Manhattan....film home to the Jets and Sharks?
Folks....we have to get out of these gangs....and think for ourselves once again....which hopefully would lead to our only true hope....the same hope that David Wilkerson offered to Nicky Cruz.....the Gospel of Jesus Christ!
Addendum: It occurred to me after posting the above....that my own novella....titled Isaac Crockett....written over twenty years ago....had a similar story line....in that a young protestant man falls in love with a young catholic girl....which results in quite a bit of friction between the young man and the girl's father.
