West Side Story (1961) Starring: Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer,
Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris. Additional singing by Marni Nixon (for Natalie Wood). Directed by Robert Wise and Jerome
Robbins. Screenplay by Ernst Lehman. Based on the Broadway Musical West Side
Story, conceived, directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins with music by
Leonard Bernstein, words by Stephen Sondheim and book by Arthur Laurents. Produced
by Robert Wise. Run Time: 152. Color. U.S. Musical.
In 1947, Jerome Robbins approached Leonard
Bernstein and Arthur Laurents about a contemporary musical adaptation of William
Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet, which itself was a retelling of an Italian
tale. Originally conceived as a love story between an Irish-American boy and a
Jewish girl, the idea evolved over the next ten years. The musical that opened
on Broadway in 1957 took place on the ethnic and blue collar streets of New
York City with the feuding Capulets and Montagues replaced by two street gangs,
the Jets and the Sharks. Given the talent involved, it should come as no
surprise that the musical would be well represented in the 1958 Tony Awards,
being nominated, but not winning, the award for Best Musical. It would lose out
to The Music Man.
After its run on Broadway, the musical would
open on London’s West End, in 1958, tour the U.S. in 1959 and a return to the
Great White Way in 1960, the musical would be turned into a film and released
in 1961. The film would go on to win the Academy Award for Best Picture, Best
Supporting Actor, Best Supporting Actress, Art Direction (Color),
Cinematography (Color), Costume Design (Color), Best Director, Best Film
Editing, Original Score and Best Sound.
Having never seen the musical on stage, I cannot
comment on how the storytelling might differ between versions. While watching
the film, I was reminded of On the Town, in as much as West Side Story was
shot, in part, on location in New York City and features some very physical and
athletic dancing. While some of the film’s dialogue seems as fresh as an old Dragnet
episode, the story is still powerful and the music quite memorable.
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The Jets, lead by Riff (Russ Tamblyn) dancing through New York City. |
In a lot of action movies you know that the
fights are choreographed so that actors and extras don’t accidentally hurt one
another. But this is nothing compared to West Side Story. This is a musical
after all and the fighting is depicted in highly choreographed dance sequences.
While the finger snapping and leaps may seem odd to modern audiences, it is
hard to imagine what a Michael Jackson video would have looked like if this
movie’s choreography hadn’t been there as a blueprint.
While it seems so many of today’s musicals are
either retold movies with music or stories put to already written music catalogs, West Side Story boasts some very original and iconic songs: “Maria”,
“America” and “Tonight” from the first Act and “I Feel Pretty” and “Somewhere”
from the second come to mind. The clash of immigrant and native-born American
is still relevant today, especially with the current legislation pending in the
Senate, but I will leave it to more political blogs to discuss that aspect, if
they so desire.
The Jets are a white-boy gang on the West side
of New York City. Led by Riff (Russ Tamblyn), it’s good to be a Jet. That is
until the Sharks, a Puerto-Rican gang, show up to test its dominance. Led by
Bernardo (George Chakiris), the two gangs pick fights with one another until at
last Riff can’t stand it any longer. He calls for a War counsel to set up the
rumble that will once and for all decide superiority.
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Bernardo (George Chakiris) leads the Sharks. |
Riff wants Tony Wyzek (Richard Beymer) to stand
up with him against the Sharks. Tony, a co-founder of the gang, has left street
life for a delivery job for Doc’s (Ned Glass) candy store. But loyalties being
what they are, Tony agrees to go with Riff to the dance.
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Confrontations between the Sharks and Jets leads to a War Council. |
Bernardo is also going with his best girl, Anita
(Rita Moreno) and his kid-sister, Maria (Natalie Wood). Maria is new to America
and this is her first night out. Once
there, though, Maria falls hard for Tony, who likewise falls for her. When the
two lock eyes across the dance floor, everything else disappears from their
world. Tony walks the streets of New York singing “Maria” as an ode to the girl
of his dreams.
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It is love at first sight between Tony and Maria. |
The famous balcony scene from Shakespeare’s
Romeo and Juliet is reinterpreted here as a fire escape off an alley, where
Tony goes to woo Maria, after Bernardo has taken her home from the dance. The
two share their love with the song “Tonight”.
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Tony and Maria on the fire escape singing Tonight (though Marni Nixon is singing for Natalie Wood). |
Meanwhile, up on the roof, the Puerto-Rican men
and women differ in their world view. The song “America” with its broken
English lyrics illustrates that the women, led by Anita, seem happy with their
new country, which offers them freedoms and opportunities they didn’t know back
home. The men’s counter lyrics show their disdain for their treatment and new
lives, though no one seems in a real hurry to go home.
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Anita (Rita Moreno) leads the other Shark girls in praising "America". |
West Side Story takes what I would consider a
liberal slant towards street gangs. They are not portrayed as doing anything
more illegal than stealing fruit from a cart. Their drive for neighborhood dominance
is not to corner the drug trade or extortion. There really is no reason given
other than “this is our street.” This is not what I would consider a realistic
depiction of street gangs, but hey it’s a musical. The authorities, in the form
of Lieutenant Schrank (Simon Oakland) and his right hand man Officer Krumpke (William
Bramley) appear helpless and uninformed and in fact, Schrank comes across as an
out and out racist, even offering to help the Jets in their battle with the
Sharks.
In the comedic-toned “Gee Officer Krumpke” the
gangs are depicting themselves as nothing more than downtrodden children
finding a family on the streets to combat the lousy role models (drug-using
hooker moms and drunkards for fathers) they have back home. As juvenile delinquents
they’ve been run through the ringer of society, from being before a judge, to
seeing a shrink to seeing a social worker to going to jail, none of which seems
to change them.
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The Jets try to explain themselves in "Gee, Officer Krumpke". |
The Jets and the Sharks meet at Doc’s shop to
discuss terms for their rumble. Date, time and location are discussed and
agreed to, but once they start talking about weapons, things get out of hand
quickly and like the then raging Cold War, each side ups the ante. But Tony
arrives and influences the proceedings enough to get an all-out rumble with
rocks and bricks downgraded, as it were, to a one-on-one hand-to-hand fight
between each gang’s best fighters. While Bernardo is anxious to get his hands
on Tony and agrees to the scaled down conflict, Riff selects a different
champion, Ice (Tucker Smith).
The night of the big brawl, Tony goes to meet
Maria at the bridal dress shop where she works with Anita, who is there long
enough to see Tony come in the back way. Tony and Maria are a couple of crazy
kids so much in love, but still know there will be societal issues and barriers
to cross. Maria’s not convinced her parents will accept Tony, but he’s
confident he can bring them round; just as he’s confident his mother will warm
up to Maria as well. The two are so convinced that they stage their own mock
wedding with the clothes they find in the shop.
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Tony and Maria marry themselves. |
Meanwhile, Riff and the Jets and Bernardo and
the Sharks meet for the fist fight to settle their differences. But both sides
come with secret weapons and before long a knife fight breaks out between Riff
and Bernardo. Despite their flying about and acrobatic movements, Riff finally
finds the business end of Bernardo’s knife. Tony, who had come to stop the proceedings,
gets drawn in. When Riff, someone he considers a brother, goes down, he has no
choice and fights and kills Bernardo in revenge. A rumble naturally ensues, but
the fighting stops and the gangs scatter when the police arrive.
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Tony (rear) arrives to try and break up the rumble, but he only escalates things. |
Chino (Jose DeVega), Bernardo’s best friend and
sometimes escort for his sister, goes to tell Maria that Tony has killed her
brother. Chino then goes out, this time with a gun, to seek revenge. Tony
meanwhile shows up at Maria’s apartment (whose parents are perpetually out) and
receives her forgiveness. Apparently, her love for Tony is stronger than
anything else. While not shown, this is the early 60’s for goodness sakes, we
get the idea that like Romeo and Juliet, Tony and Maria consummate their relationship
that night.
But Anita shows up and Tony leaves through the
window, promising to meet with Maria at Doc’s and form their runaway. While
Anita doesn’t approve, she still helps Maria. When Schrank arrives to ask
questions, Maria sends Anita to meet with Tony. Being a good friend, she goes.
With Doc out raising money for Tony, who is
hiding in the cellar, the candy shop is left to the Jets to man. When the
pretty and headstrong Puerto-Rican Anita arrives, she does not get a warm
reception. Instead the boys try to make her leave, but when she insists on
seeing Tony, we’re shown through dance, their manhandling and almost rape of
the girl. The action is broken up by Doc, who comes back and chases everyone
away. Anita, who up until then has loved America, now sides with Bernardo in
her hatred. As she leaves in anger, she tells everyone that Chino has killed
Maria with a gun and that he is looking for Tony, only the latter of which is true..
When Doc tells Tony that Maria is dead, Tony
runs outside looking for Chino, wanting to be killed so he can join his love in
death. But Maria is not dead and she has come looking for Tony. Chino, Maria
and Tony are on a collision course which ends with Tony and Maria hugging just
as Chino (who turns out is a really good shot) shoots Tony dead in the climactic
scene.
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No happy ending. Maria tends to a dying Tony after he's been shot by Chino. |
Maria is distraught about the senselessness of
the violence. Both gangs gather round as Schrank and Krumpke arrive. When the
Jets pick up Tony’s dead body, a couple of Sharks help them carry him away.
(Great job protecting the crime scene Schrank.) One by one and two by two the
gang members disburse, leaving only Chino and the cops, who start to take him
away.
We’re left at the end with a sense that nothing really
has changed and with all of our leads, except Maria dead, there is really no
one in either gang to take control. And the police are really only good at
cleaning up the mess, not preventing it from happening. Can you say social
commentary?
If you have never seen West Side Story, I would
recommend that you see it. This was truly a revolutionary musical in that it
tried to tell a then modern day story with modern (jazz influenced) music in a
modern way. As in life, there are not always happy endings and everyone has
blame in what society has wrought. The problem with what is modern in 1961 is
not fifty years later. The last movie I remember hearing someone say “Daddy-O”
in was Blackboard Jungle (1955), an early attempt to discuss juvenile delinquency
on film. Maybe kids really talked like that back then, but it always comes
across as sounding like that’s how adults think kids talk.
The choreography is phenomenal. Building on the
athleticism of Gene Kelley’s choreography (I had mentioned On the Town earlier),
Jerome Robbins builds upon that and literally takes everything to new heights. I’ll
admit the dancing for strutting and fighting takes a little getting used to,
but once you get past that, look at the moves these men and women are making. These
are not just great dancers, they are practically doing parkour with acrobatic
moves, leaping about and pulling themselves up on pipes and fences.
ven aged, the film has a certain power that
resonates through the years. The story of Romeo and Juliet has been made many
times on stage and screen, but none are quite as unique and well done as this
film adaptation of the retelling. You weep for the young lovers who will never
live out their dreams.
If you read this, please feel free to leave comments.