h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

West Side Story 1961

Romeo and Juliet in 50’s New York. Fabulous dancing and some great show tunes. The two leads, Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer as Maria and Tony, are a bit wet, but Rita Moreno as Anita and George Chakaris as Bernardo more than make up for it.

We get love songs and fun songs (‘Gee Officer Krupke’) and we get ‘America’ which if you get your mind off the fantastic rhythm (and Rita Moreno) has a very satiric lyric. The sub text running under the love story is immigration, and the irony is that the new immigrants (the Puerto Ricans) are despised by the first generation Americans descended from Polish and Irish immigrants. And both sets are looked down on by the police lieutenant, who thinks himself a true American, but as he isn’t Native American, he must be an immigrant too.

At the end, Tony (Romeo) is dead, and his body is carried away from the scene by members of both gangs, a sort of reconciliation. Slowly everyone else begins to leave and the last two notes of ‘Somewhere’ repeat softly, three times. Not a dry eye in the house. Superb. And then the credits roll.

Two people are missing from the credits. And no, I am not getting all sniffy because Will isn’t mentioned. He doesn’t need to be. Everyone is familiar with his Romeo and Juliet. It is actually worse. No mention of Jimmy Bryant. Who? He’s the guy doing the singing for Richard Beymer. There is a story that co-director Robert Wise wanted Elvis Presley for the role. That would have been interesting.

Jimmy Bryant has an odd connection with Elvis. After one of the King’s forgettable sixties movies, it was noticed in editing that in one scene he was shown whistling but no sound was recorded. As he had gone off on tour, Jimmy Bryant was called in to whistle for him.

The other missing name is even more difficult to understand. The girl who sang Maria’s songs. Marni Nixon, a name that may not be well known to any but the real film geeks. Which is a shame as she was probably the finest singer working in musical film at the time. Not just Maria, she also did a little bit of Anita’s singing when a sore throat sidelined Rita Moreno. Add into that, Anna for Deborah Kerr in the ‘King and I’ and also in ‘An Affair to Remember’, and most beautifully, Eliza Doolittle for Audrey Hepburn in ‘My Fair Lady’.

She finally made it in front of the camera in ‘The Sound of Music’ playing one of the nuns who were wondering "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" which has a nicely ironic sting to it. She’s the one that bears a passing resemblance to Julie Andrews.

Romeo and Juliet has long been a favourite, you don’t need to be a Shakespeare aficionado to know the plot, and it has been filmed in various guises by Hollywood over the years. Following on from the 1929 ‘Taming of the Shrew’ and the 1935 ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream’ (always worth a watch for Jimmy Cagney as Nick Bottom), the next try at a bit of culture from Hollywood was ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in 1936.

The star crossed lovers are played by Norma Shearer aged 34 and Leslie Howard aged 43. Basil Rathbone playing Tybalt was 44. Mercutio is played by the great Shakespearean actor John Barrymore aged 54 in his only recorded sound performance of Shakespeare, allegedly drunk as a skunk for a deal of the time: which leads one to expect a not very convincing experience.

Amazingly it isn’t so. Yes Barrymore does a comic Irish routine but then Luhrmann had Mercutio as a pill popping transvestite and that fitted. So Shearer and Howard are far too old to be young lovers BUT you have to be much older than the characters (or a genius actor) to be able to play the parts with the required depth. And they most certainly do. The scene when Juliet takes the potion provided by Friar Lawrence is a particularly difficult piece for a young and inexperienced actress.

When Zefferelli filmed ‘Romeo and Juliet’ in 1966 he cut this scene. His Juliet (Olivia Hussey) was only 15 and her Romeo (Leonard Whiting) was 16. Plus points include the fight between Mercutio and Tybalt which is not treated as a murderous attack but two young men showing off. Mercutio’s death is not the result of Tybalt’s intent but an unhappy accident caused by Romeo’s intervention.

The youth of the lead actors does result in a certain shallowness of delivery but adds the romanticism of the young. The downside is Juliet’s reaction to the death of Tybalt and Romeo’s banishment when she engages in fifteen minutes of the most unbelievable (I mean not to be believed) sobbing which had me reaching for the volume control.

And so to Baz Lurhmann’s ‘Romeo + Juliet’. I enjoyed this film on first watching and so many years later I still get a kick from it. True the poetry is missing as a result of the need to keep the action pumping along, but there is no denying it is an exciting film, and that’s not an epithet often applied to Shakespeare. DiCaprio and Danes make a good pair of young lovers (and Claire has the most adorable nose in the business).

Pete Postlethwaite makes a lot of Friar Lawrence, and Mercutio in drag is an absolute hoot and gives a visual image to the character as a man hovering on the edge of madness who essentially lights the fuse of the mayhem that follows. I can watch the ‘Young Hearts’ song sequence many times and never tire.

Settings are perfect, filmed in Mexico it feels hot and sweaty and the rampant heated testosterone fuelled teenage violence bubbles like lava from the screen. Ultimately it fails as Shakespeare because it lacks the speech rhythms and beauty which are the whole point of poetic drama, but as a film in its own right it is very good indeed.

When I was younger I thought this play was a bit soppy. Perhaps it’s a bloke thing? As I matured (aged? no that sounds like I’m a cheese. Cheesy yes, perhaps) I found I enjoyed it more and more. Age and melancholia go together quite naturally I find. Not the illness, melancholia, which must be quite nasty, but the self induced, self controlled melancholy, looking back at life and its missed opportunities, not the financial stuff, but the bits involving pretty girls.

That’s why I love movies like ‘Romeo and Juliet’ ‘Forever Young’ ‘Bridges of Madison County’ ‘Brief Encounter’. After an aperitif of a fine single malt, a good dinner with wine, natch, sitting down to watch one of those films, and at the end silently blubbing into my after dinner brandy, is heaven on earth for me. And cheers me up immensely!

Although the alcohol obviously contributes too.

I love West Side Story. I saw it first as a teenager at school as part of my English class, I think. I still love it, and love the soundtrack.

When you mentioned Marni Nixon I thought "where do I know that name". Of course, My Fair Lady, another film I love.

I haven't seen any other version of Romeo & Juliet but I've really enjoyed this review.

Deb

[Amy P]