West Side Story

West Side Story famously takes most of its story points from William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and updates the setting to present-day New York City. Instead of two warring families, it tackles a modern-day equivalent, racism and immigration, two subjects that have continued to rear their evil heads and have become a boiling-point issue in modern-day politics. The characters are shown to be from the same working-class backgrounds regardless of what race they come from, leaving the only factor that divides them to be race. This allows the viewers to step back and examine their own prejudices when the modern-day equivalents of Romeo and Juliet appear and fall for each other, blinded by their love and unwilling to let their differences keep them apart. Of course, knowing the original beats of Shakespeare’s play, we know this will not end happily. To do so would be to betray the story’s message. This could only end one way, in tragedy.

The Broadway version of West Side Story was conceived by Jerome Robbins with music by Leonard Bernstein, lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, and a book by Arthur Laurents. It hit the stage in 1957 and ran for 732 performances before going on tour, making it a massive hit and earning two Tony Awards. Since then, it has seen several revivals as well as two film adaptations, both of which have been nominated for Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The first of these was in 1961.

When it came time to adapt West Side Story for cinemas, Jerome Robbins paired up with Robert Wise to co-direct it. Natalie Wood, still playing up her youthful charm from a long career as a child actress, was cast as Maria, and Richard Beymer took on the part of Tony. Neither of these actors had a particularly strong singing voice and thus had singing doubles perform the songs for them. This was a common practice back in the day; we saw the same thing with Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady three years later. The unfortunate side effect is that there are times when it is painfully obvious it is not the actors’ singing voices during the musical numbers, which can sometimes be distracting. Natalie Wood does a better job of distracting us from this, though, with her dancing, charisma, and overall beauty. She was one of the actresses of the time that seemed to have it all and should have had a long and happy life and career. Sadly, that was not to be the case. Her unhappy story and tragic ending shocked the world, and there are still more questions than answers surrounding her death.

The plot involves two rival gangs in the Upper West Side of Manhattan, a working-class neighborhood. Two rival gangs fight over the territory: The Jets, made up of young white men in the neighborhood, and the Sharks. The Sharks are all Puerto Rican immigrants who, for no other reason than not being white “natives,” are in direct conflict with the Jets, who look at them as invaders there to take jobs and land away from the whites. Leader and co-founder of the Jets is Riff (Russ Tamblyn). He proposes that the two groups settle their differences with a rumble, a fight to determine who will have control over the streets. To do so, they will have to approach Bernardo (George Chakiris), the head of the Sharks, on neutral ground. Riff suggests bringing in Tony (Richard Beymer), the other founding member of the Jets, to help with the rumble. Tony has recently left the Jets and taken a job at a drugstore. The other Jets feel like Tony abandoned them, but Riff convinces them to set that aside for the betterment of the gang. 

Tony is uncertain about the viability of a rumble with the Sharks but agrees to go with Riff to a dance at the school, neutral ground, where both sides will be in attendance and where Riff intends to extend the invitation to the rumble and set a time to finalize the location and terms of the fight. While at the dance, the two groups refuse to intermingle despite the best efforts of the faculty. From across the room, Tony sees Maria (Natalie Wood), a Puerto Rican and sister to Bernardo, and he falls immediately in love with her. 

A movie musical is only as good as the songs that accompany it, and that is the case with West Side Story. There are no misses on this soundtrack. From the opening orchestral number by Leonard Bernstein, accompanied by some beautiful choreography, to the iconic opening lines “When you’re a Jet, you’re a jet all the way from your first cigarette to your last dying day,” this soundtrack is filled with memorable lines and score. There are no weak numbers here. Each one is catchy and fits into the structure of the film perfectly. They also evoke emotional responses, be it the witty humor of “Gee, Officer Krupke,” or the sweet innocence of young love in “Maria.” Late in the film, there is a powerful medley leading up to the rumble that is titled “Tonight Quintet” that is both haunting and beautiful as it evokes the upcoming dangers that will fuel the climax of the story. This soundtrack has become iconic and powerful and still holds up after over sixty years, as evidenced in the 2021 remake. Say what you want about the unnecessary nature of the remake, but the music in it hasn’t lost its power.

The film’s themes of man-made divisions and the stupidity of racism haven’t lessened over the decades. I remember being taught in high school that there would be this thing called a cultural melting pot where things like race, religion, and culture would blend together and everyone would become this big mixture of everyone else eventually. Part of the idea of the melting pot was that we would see a fading away of cultural differences as we all started accepting those differences and incorporating bits and pieces of them into our own cultural identities. While there is no denying that that has happened on a small scale, the world at large is still very much divided and is still intolerant of cultures and ideas that are different from each other, even amongst themselves. We’re seeing some of this in the news lately with Springfield, Ohio, and the Haitian immigrants. Some people have embraced this rapid influx of immigrants, but a lot of people have elected to instead sow dissent and hatred towards a people whose only crime was wanting to live somewhere where they could be free from tyranny. The world we live in is not that far off from the one that is playing out in West Side Story. 

West Side Story isn’t depicting things one-sidedly, either. We get the Puerto Rican perspective, too. There are conflicting views within their people, also. The beautiful and rousing musical number “America” illustrates the argument between immigrating and staying in their home country by throwing back and forth the differences in opinions. Bernardo argues for a return to the island, while his girlfriend Anita (Rita Moreno) points out just how much better life is in America than what they would be faced with back home. 

This movie was made in the 1960s. It is important to remember that when looking at the casting of the film. Natalie Wood isn’t Puerto Rican nor is she Hispanic. Many of the main Puerto Rican characters are not played by Hispanic actors. It was a sad reality of the times the film was made. When Steven Spielberg set out to make his version of the film in the 2020s, one of the things he was particularly vocal about was righting that wrong. For the most part, he did, even though he still took some heat for casting Rachel Zegler, an actress with Colombian ancestry rather than Puerto Rican, as Maria. It’s not a perfect cast, heritage-wise, but it’s a far cry from a white cast playing Hispanics. 

This film holds up to modern eyes as a cautionary tale of where hate leads. It is a message that still needs to be heard today. The ending of this film is grim and sad, and anyone who knows the original source material, Romeo and Juliet, will know where this is heading. But that doesn’t soften the blow when it does happen. Tony’s death in the arms of Maria is still shocking, and Maria’s cries of sorrow and anger as she calls out both sides of the skirmish for their roles in his death are soul-crunching. The message isn’t subtle nor should it be. This is a message that is so important that it needs to be called out without any chance of misinterpretation. 

This was a powerful and emotional stage play back in the late 1950s. That doesn’t always translate well to the big screen. We have seen the likes of Les Misérables and Cats fail to make much of an impression on movie audiences in recent years, and though those were faithful adaptations, they just didn’t work the way they do on the stage. West Side Story is an example of a faithful adaptation that not only works but, in some ways, exceeds what was on the stage. It opens up the stage into the vast streets of the city and manages to tell a timeless story of love and hatred. This is a beautiful picture filled with rousing musical numbers and a message as important now as it ever was. Quite simply, it is a film that needs to be seen.

Academy Award Nominations:

Best Picture: Robert Wise (won)

Best Director: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins (won)

Best Supporting Actor: George Chakiris (won)

Best Supporting Actress: Rita Moreno (won)

Best Screenplay - Based on Material from Another Medium: Ernest Lehman

Best Art Direction - Color: Boris Leven and Victor A. Gangelin (won)

Best Cinematography - Color: Daniel L. Fapp (won)

Best Costume Design - Color: Irene Sharaff (won)

Best Film Editing: Thomas Stanford (won)

Best Scoring of a Musical Picture: Saul Chaplin, Johnny Green, Irwin Kostal, and Sid Ramin (won)

Best Sound: Fred Hynes and Gordon E. Sawyer (won)

Academy Honorary Award: Jerome Robbins (won)

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Release Date: October 18, 1961

Running Time: 152 minutes

Not Rated

Starring: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, and George Chakiris

Directed By: Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins