“How could you leave out West Side Story?” wrote some. “How the hell could you leave out West Side Story?” asked others. Others still followed “How the” with a word not usually heard in polite company before asking the same question: Leave out West Side Story?!?

This all stemmed from my offering my list of the 25 Best Improvements Made in Movies of Broadway Musicals. Dozens upon dozens wondered why my list was West Side Story-free.

Truth to tell, when I first formulated the list, I wound up with 27 items. That meant I had to drop two to get it down to 25. One excision turned out to be cited by Douglas Braverman: That in Damn Yankees, we get to see Griffith Stadium in Washington, DC. The other one I dropped involved West Side Story, and I shed it purposely just to see how many would mention what I chose to eliminate: How the movie switched the order of “Cool” and “Gee, Officer Krupke," and how the slant of the number “America” changed.

Jason Flum saw through my ruse: “I'm sure you consciously left off the flip of ‘Gee, Officer Krupke’ and ‘Cool.’ To me, ‘Cool’ just makes more sense AFTER the Rumble. It fits in beautifully the way it's framed in the movie. ‘Gee, Officer Krupke’ is too lighthearted after the boys watched two their friend and leader die.”

Wrote Jeremy Fassler, “Yes, I know that (lyricist Stephen) Sondheim and (bookwriter Arthur) Laurents deep down rue this switch, but ‘Cool’ makes so much more sense in the movie--it's so much more exciting.

Paul Mendenhall weighed in, too: “Despite what Sondheim and Laurents say, that switch was absolutely right. There is no way those devastated kids would do a merry number like ‘Krupke’ after just seeing two of their friends murdered. And ‘Cool’ has a major point to make in its new position: that the assumed nonchalance of these kids is about avoiding pain and vulnerability. Plus, the new setting in the garage offers great new staging opportunities.”

Tom Adams decided, “The West Side Story movie improves the song order. Now ‘Cool’ and ‘Gee, Officer Krupke’ are where each always belonged. It never made sense to have them singing and having a wonderful time after their good friend Riff died. Then, at last, I heard Sondheim say last month (at UCLA, with Frank Rich) that he complained about it to Jerome Robbins during previews. Apparently, however, it was too late to change it, due to the way the sets were constructed. But he told Steve that he'd change it for the film -- before he had his early exit,” he wrote, referring to Robbins’ being fired from the film.

Susan Berlin brought up the other point with which I’m in agreement: “I like ‘America’ better in the movie. Instead of making fun of the woman who wants to return to Puerto Rico, the new lyrics allow Bernardo and the Sharks to complain about what’s wrong in America, while Anita and the other young woman are telling you they are not going.” That should come as some solace to Tom Lancaster, who lamented, “I'm one of the only people I know who prefers ‘America’ as a men-vs.-women number.”

Many other readers had even bigger issues with my choosing The Wizard of Oz and how I handled it. I chose as my improvements, “Judy Garland, Ray Bolger, Jack Haley, Bert Lahr, and Margaret Hamilton. Those who originated their roles on Broadway COULDN’T have been better, could they have?”

“What!” Ezirio Lanchow screeched: "The Wizard of Oz on this list??!? You might as well have found something in the movie musical of My Sister Eileen that you liked better than in Wonderful Town,” he said, citing two other wildly different musical properties.

Actually, when first formulating my list, I took my lead from Denny Martin Flinn’s book, Musicals! In his appendix, “Broadway on Film,” he includes The Wizard of Oz: “Really a Hollywood original,” he wrote, “but in 1903 there had been a lavish and successful musical of Frank Baum’s story.” But, really, the true reason I mentioned the Fabulous Five was that homaging them seemed a fitting way to end the column.

So I wrote Lachow and said, “Well, like it or not, there WAS a musical version of The Wizard of Oz in the early 20th century. True, it didn’t have the Arlen-Harburg score, or the script. But all I'm saying is that the five people who played those roles on Broadway in 1903 COULDN'T have been better than the five in the 1939 movie.

“And Toto, too!”

Really, you can keep your Lassies, Benjis, Rin-Tin-Tins, Rin-Tin-Toons, and Rong-Tong-Tongs: Have you EVER seen a dog give a better performance than “Terry” did as Toto in The Wizard of Oz? Look at him as he follows everyone who follows the Yellow Brick Road. The dog is working hard. He’s looking up at them with an – I mean this – intelligence.

Try telling that to Lanchow: “And Toto too?” he snorted. “In the original The Wizard of Oz stage musical, the part of Toto was played by a cow (whose great-great granddaughter might be Caroline in Gypsy).”

I’ll still put my money on Terry.

I was impressed, though, with how much Lanchow knew about that way-back-when Broadway musical: “The vaudeville comedy team of Montgomery and Stone played the Scarecrow and the Tin Man, and they followed the practice of the time by interpolating songs that had little to do with the plot. One of the big hits was ‘Hurrah for Baffin's Bay,’ about a maritime trip to the north -- but ‘We couldn't find the pole because the barber moved away.’ They were the sensations of the show and I imagine they would give Ray Bolger and Jack Haley  a run for the money, at least in terms of comedy interplay."

He summed up with, “Conscious choices were made to set it apart from the blockbuster stage show that had toured the country well within living memory, so you're right in pointing out that the movie version was an improvement. I still don't think it belongs on the list, though, since the two adaptations you're comparing were so wildly dissimilar. We continue to disagree on this one!”

Rick Thompson felt the same way after I answered his objection with the exact same answer I gave Lanchow. “I looked it up in my Bordman,” he responded, referring to Gerald Bordman’s tome American Musical Theatre, “and Bordman says ‘the most memorable moments were the carryings-on of Fred Stone and Dave Montgomery as the Scarecrow and the Tin Man,’ roles that ‘established them as stars. Time and again their offerings were to prove the major success of the season; and while they had a few imitators, they had no rivals.’

He summed up with, “I would imagine that, back in 1903, people were saying no one could ever play the Scarecrow and the Tin Man as well. So maybe we shouldn't give the crown to Bolger and Haley quite so quickly, if in fact we're going to award any crowns at all. Personally, I don't think they can be compared. They were in different times, in different shows, and in different TYPES of shows.”

I’m telling you, those scientists have got to get on the ball and invent us a time machine. That’s the only way we’ll ever really know.