Last Friday I suggested a new weekly tradition of posting a Mambo dance to round out the week. Our first example was the lustrous Silvana Mangano–dig this clip of her killer Mambo if you missed it last week. Today we jump ahead a decade and dive into the ‘Dance At The Gym’ sequence from the 1961 version of ‘West Side Story’, which features a roaring Mambo performed by some of the best dressed low-rent kids Manhattan’s west side has ever known. Jerry Robbins choreography is masterful. (I call him ‘Jerry’ because he was a pal of mine.) (No, he wasn’t.) There’s always been some dispute as to which sequences were fully directed by Robbins or by co-director Bob Wise. (I call him Bob because we were friends.) (Actually, that’s the truth.) My sense is that it was a more-or-less collaborative venture, which ended with Robbins being dismissed halfway through the shoot, to the eternal annoyance of the original Broadway ‘West Side Story’ team. Indeed, in 2001 the film had a 40th anniversary screening at Radio City Music Hall which Wise attended. None of the living creators of the show–Stephen Sondheim, Arthur Laurents, Jerry–turned up for it. Soreheads. Please note that you need to sit through two minutes of set-up before the dance action begins. You can skip ahead of course but if you do you’ll deprive yourself of a free Chinese lesson. You’ll see what I mean when you roll the footage.