Look Again at WEST SIDE STORY

Famed veteran director Steven Spielberg is forging ahead with his plans to remake WEST SIDE STORY. He has cast his Tony and his Maria. He's also cast Riff, Officer Krupke, racist police detective Lieutenant Schrank and Rita Moreno will have a special role.  Moreno, who won the Best Supporting Actress Oscar the same night WEST SIDE STORY won several other Oscars including Best Picture of 1961, will play the store owner.  Now, the store owner will not be "Doc" as he is in the 1961 classic. There will be a gender change. Rita Moreno will play the store owner. Tony Kushner, the celebrated and cerebral playwright who gave us ANGELS IN AMERICA has been adapting the screenplay. The Pulitzer Prize winner also wrote the screenplay to Spielberg's LINCOLN.  It's been reported that Rita Moreno read an early draft Kushner's WEST SIDE STORY script and did some rewriters, giving him needed help in the "Latino realness" area. Spielberg's intent is to make his version more racially correct. Latino characters will play the Puerto Ricans. That is a noble intention. No, Natalie Wood was not a Latina. George Chakiris, the Best Supporting Actor Oscar winner for his performance as Bernardo, is not Latino.  However, I look at the overall project and I have to say -- I feel that 1961's WEST SIDE STORY is a work of film art.  It's beloved. It's memorable. It's moving.

The modern-day take on Shakespeare's ROMEO AND JULIET, based on a hit Broadway musical, had that special screen magic. The cast, choreography, orchestrations, cinematography -- and the story were all perfect for us. Lt. Schrank is a racist bully. We hear his derogatory comments to the Puerto Rican teens. In today's age of an American president calling Mexicans "rapists and murderers," throwing rolls of paper towels at hurricane-wrecked Puerto Ricans and demanding a wall to keep immigrant Latinos, WEST SIDE STORY still rings relevant. Keep in mind that it was released during the national friction and news-making years of our Civil Rights Movement.

I sure hope Spielberg knows what he's doing. I like Spielberg. I did wonder this: If he wanted to make something racially correct in terms of casting and something based on a hit Broadway musical, why didn't he do MISS SAIGON? That Broadway show was one of the hottest tickets in town, yet it was never adapted into a film like other hit Broadway musicals like A CHORUS LINE, CHICAGO, HAIRSPRAY, LES MISERABLES, DREAMGIRLS and INTO THE WOODS.

MISS SAIGON has love, war, racial conflict, spectacle, special effects and showtunes. Also, there would be important roles for Asian-American actors -- and they are way overdue some Hollywood spotlight. But does Spielberg listen to me? No.

WEST SIDE STORY is now available on Netflix. A few weeks ago, it was on cable and, of course, it hypnotized me again. I discovered more depth in one key, intense scene.

One teen character seems to be an outsider put in for occasional comic relief from the gang war tension. The character is called "Anybodys." She wants to be one of the Jets. Anybodys is what we used to call a tomboy. She dresses like a guy, has a short haircut and tries to adapt a tough street attitude which she never can effectively pull off. That's the part we find comical.

The Jets are constantly telling Anybodys to get lost, go home and put on a dress. She doesn't listen. Then comes the drugstore store after the gang fight that leaves Bernardo and Riff dead. Maria begs Anita to go to Doc's store with a message for Tony. But when grieving, angry Anita arrives that store, there's trouble. All the Jets are there. Anybodys is with them because she's on the side of the white guys. The Jets begins to verbally taunt and intimidate Puerto Rican Anita. Anybodys joins in with the verbal taunts and racial insults.

The verbal taunts quickly progress into something darker. Physical molestation. A sexual assault with the suggestion of it leading to gang rape.

Notice that Anita is not the only female horrified. When the attempted rape starts, Anybodys is also horrified, horrified at what she's witnessing. She backs up into a corner, against a wall, separating herself from the Jets bad activity. She's no longer trying to be one of the boys.

Anita may be of a different race but, just like Anybodys, she's also a female. Watch that scene again. Notice that Anybodys is emotionally shaken when she leaves the store.  That gives extra weight and gravity to the scene.

Anybodys was played by Susan Oakes.  WEST SIDE STORY was directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins.