West Side Story

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source: West Side Story

source: West Side Story

It's not that "West Side Story" doesn't deserve its resilient popularity; just that I don't understand it. Tony loves Maria. Maria loves Tony. They kiss and sing about it. Tony's gang hates Maria's brother and his friends. Ditto the other way around. They dance and sing about it. All this is played out roughly along the lines of Shakespeare's "Romeo And Juliet", for two and a half hours. I kept looking at the clock. "West Side Story" has many problems. The central romance between Natalie Wood's Maria and Richard Beymer's Tony is dully written and blandly performed, while the acting around them is stagy and broad. The script is smothered in cliché, especially when attempting to mimic teenage patter. Too many of the songs by Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein are inert, unhummable and fail to stir. Co-director Robert Wise labors to give his film a gritty texture, but this is totally undercut by the choreography of the other director, Jerome Robbins. It's hard to buy a street fight where battles consist of pirouetting and leapfrogs. There's no denying "West Side Story" was a big hit, and resonates with many today. It definitely showcases Wise's versatility. I didn't like his other Oscar-winning musical from four years later, "The Sound Of Music", but for an almost completely different set of reasons. The film does look great, decently shot and sumptuously detailed. There are three songs on the soundtrack even I like: "Maria", "America", and especially "I Feel Pretty", which make their mark and move things along nicely. Russ Tamblyn as the leader of the Jets, Riff, stands out with his acrobatic dance moves and his way with a line as he prepares for another gang war: "We fought hard for this turf, and we ain't just gonna give it up...I say this turf is small, but it's all we got." Perhaps the biggest issue I have with "West Side Story" is the way it staggers after significance, from the opening titles (Saul Bass is usually so much better) to the closing scene where what's left of the cast assembles at a darkened playground to lick their wounds. Again and again, the stabs at greatness clash with the artificiality of the musical form and the staginess of the acting and direction. It seems a bad idea to mix backlot sets with real street shots of Manhattan; if "West Side Story" was going to work, at least for me, it needed to either dive more deeply into the fantasy side of the story or else be conceived a whole different way. Of course, that wasn't a problem with the Broadway musical, where artifice and big showstopping moments are part of the accepted vocabulary. On film, though, it all rings a little hollow. "Loving is enough", Maria tells Tony near the end. "Not here," he replies. He means the mean West Side streets, but I thought for a moment about the movie camera. Maybe it's just me.

The first ten minutes are great - the opening sequence on the playground plays like some bizarre urban ballet....and then they move indoors. Most of this film was shot on soundstages, and the directors made no effort to make it look like anything other than what it was - a filmed play. Any effort at all to shoot outdoor scenes outdoors would have improved the film considerably. Instead, we're left with a film that hasn't a shred of realism. There's no chemistry between the leads (Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood) and one can't help but wonder how two people, acquainted for a mere 24 hours (and who have spent perhaps 15 minutes together in that time), could be so "in love." When she finds out that Beymer has just killed her brother, she dismisses it with hardly a comment. It reeks of phoniness. Most of the songs are OK, although I feel compelled to point out that "Officer Krupke" just may be the worst song ever written. The dialogue, in trying to sound hip, instead sounds forced, and probably sounded phony even in 1961. Finally, most of the Jets just don't seem like gang types. Imagine Wally and Beaver Cleaver as murderers and you have some concept of the Jets. All in all, a colossal misfire, and one of the Academy's Best Picture blunders of all time. 3/10

Audiences flocked to see this handsome screen-adaptation of the popular Broadway musical show about juvenile delinquents in New York City, battling each other for prominence on Manhattan's West Side. So many different, top-rank talents were involved in this production that it's really no surprise the end result seems awfully heavy, weighed down by unnecessary self-importance and a creaky "Romeo and Juliet"-styled plot that was a wheeze even in 1961. Two teenagers from disparate sides fall in love, but Natalie Wood is entirely inappropriate as a barrios Cinderella (she's encumbered by the heavy pancake make-up, the plastic conviction laid upon her character and the drowsy overdubbing/lip-syncing process on the musical numbers). The thin premise is belittled further by the presentation, so big and "new" and "bold" that it forgets to have a personal connection (between the characters on-screen and the audience). Still, it won 10 Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director (the overrated Robert Wise), Best Supporting Actor (the inert George Chakiris), Best Supporting Actress (Rita Moreno, who shows real spirit), and Best Cinematography (courtesy Daniel Fapp, and deservedly so, for his opening shots are still being copied). ** from ****

A real mixed bag. The drama is forced and unmoving, and the humor is feeble. Lovely Natalie Wood overdoes the Latino bit as Maria, and she and Richard Beymer as Tony lack chemistry, thus the central romance has no urgency and their scenes together bring the movie to a halt. George Chakiris and Rita Moreno, in Oscar winning roles, along with Russ Tamblyn as Riff standout from the generally lackluster supporting cast of characters. Ned Glass is downright annoying as Doc and The Jets are the Dead End Kids recycled. It hoits! It hoits! Though a multi-Oscar winner, WSS is overlong and over-rated. On the plus side, the film has an excellent score, Jerome Robbins' amazing choreography, and first-rate on-location photography. The parts are better than the whole. So watch the film for the terrific musical numbers and fast forward through the rest.

It's hard for me to write a review about West Side Story because all the superlatives have been written and said over and over again. What I think the main contribution of West Side Story to our culture is to interest urban American youth of the Fifties in both the classics and the American Musical Theater. A typical boy or girl going to Andries Hudde Junior High School and Midwood High School from 1959 to 1965 as I did was acquainted with the music and lyrics of West Side Story from radio, records, and television and if you saved up for a Broadway seat. You might not have gotten Oklahoma, you might have thought Carousel was quaint and you sure thought South Pacific was for your parent's generation, but West Side Story spoke to you. It was about young people just trying to belong, if you will looking for a place, in time and space for us. And wonder of wonders not only could the American Musical Theater speak to you, but when your English teacher told you about the guy who wrote the story that this was based on, well maybe that guy who writes in incomprehensible English, that William Shakespeare guy, maybe he had some other relevant things to say. West Side Story promoted literacy and taste for a generation and you can't get a higher accolade than that. It's a difficult production also because it involves skill in acting, in dance, and you've got to have a great singing voice to deal with Leonard Bernstein's music and Stephen Sondheim's lyrics. They got a really great cast together on Broadway with Larry Kert, Carol Lawrence, Chita Rivera, and the rest. They all sang and danced and acted these Shakespearean based roles beautifully. Unfortunately there wasn't a movie name in the lot. Acting and dancing can't be faked on the silver screen, but singing can be dubbed as it was for leads Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood. A lot of Rita Moreno's songs were dubbed as well though that America number is all Rita. She'd actually done musicals before, The King and I and The Vagabond King remake are two of them. The voices of Jimmy Bryant and Marni Nixon fit them perfectly. West Side Story is pretty, witty, and bright and the witty part comes from two ensemble numbers Officer Krupke done by the Jets and America done by the Pyerto Rican Sharks. Listen very closely to the entertaining social commentary made by Stephen Sondheim. These numbers together with the accompanying Jerome Robbins choreography are some of the best examples of all the components of a successful musical working together. The ballads like Tonight, I Feel Pretty, A Place For Us, require almost opera like voices to sing them. I'd get either the Broadway cast album or the cast album for this film as a must for a recording collection. I happen to have a bootleg recording of Judy Garland and Vic Damone doing a selection from Garland's TV show. It is beautiful and priceless. One other thing about West Side Story that is endearing for me. Pay close attention to the role of Anybody's. It may be the first time that a transgender individual was portrayed in a major motion picture, let alone one that was the Best Picture of 1961. IMDb gives very little in the way of information about Susan Oakes the actress who played Anybody's. But her performance is nothing less than a harbinger of what Hilary Swank did as Brandon Teena in Boys Don't Cry. Like the kids from Romeo and Juliet and 16th century Verona, Italy, West Side Story is about young people just trying to find a place in time and space, finding a new way of living away from the dumb prejudices of their elders. They almost break free too. West Side Story won 10 Academy Awards including a joint Best Director Oscar for Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, Best Supporting Actor and Supporting Actress for George Chakiris and Rita Moreno and a flock of technical awards. It set a standard for stage and screen to be both entertaining and contemporary. And it's so pretty, witty, and bright.

WestSide Story is an American icon, that reveals how today's world became global, that every modern democratic country of the Earth has every different culture mixed to live together in peace. So as you might guess WestSide Story is one socio-political movie that symbolizes post-modernism. This masterpiece also reveals the most frightening question that non-Americans -and undemocratic- keep in their mind, but afraid to ask: "What if America has never been existed?" Once you watched WestSide Story, you'll realize how post-modernism changed the world, that racism and vendetta are no longer conceptual. As a matter of art, WestSide Story combines a walloping score with exuberant choreography and spectacular screenplay to create a transcendent fusion of Realism and Fantasy, that will forever be a feast for the eye, the ear, and ultimately the heart. As a matter of movie concepts, the story line has the perfect progress beginning with the introduction of the two confrontational 1950s' New York city gangs, continuing with the love occurring between a girl from an immigrant group and a boy from a fanatical nationalist group, ending with the death of the gang leaders and the lover boy. When the story begins to progress, it becomes more and more fascinating through focusing of the lovers struggling to come together. There we admire successful acting of Rita Moreno(supporting actress), Susan Oakes and George Chakiris. 9 out of 10.

I remember when this film ran on NBC television about 25 years ago. After being beefed up with commercials, it had to be shown in 2 parts over two nights. I only saw it in the theater once when I was about 12, and had forgotten many visuals which were cut off on the television screen. So let me just say that the smartest thing MGM-UA could do is present a widescreen, 70mm DVD. It has a gorgeous restored picture (important for visual effects like the dissolve of Natalie Wood spinning around in the bridal shop which blurs and multiplies and finally erupts into multiple dancers who converge at the gym, or the first time Tony and Maria see each other against the blur of the dance competition on opposite sides of the screen) and pristine sound- probably the most gorgeous score ever composed by Leonard Bernstein. There are, of course, stage purists who scoff at the movie (and its many ghost singers), but I always thought the film's adaptation was superior to the stage show because it gave the story a more breathless, one-act pace. Some songs are reshuffled and re-staged from the original libretto, and the background score is given something of a theatrical makeover. And the dancing, of course, is peerless-- whether it's the "Cool" dance with the Jets in a low-ceiling garage, the "America" battle of the sexes with the Sharks, or even the delicate rooftop dance performed in Act 2 by Natalie Wood- bewitching in a white dress and re-living the moment she first fell in love herself. None of these wonders can prepare you for the mind-numbing, emotional, climax. A tour-de-force film show, clocking in at 152 minutes.