Year: 1962
Director(s): Jerome Roberts & Robert Wise
Country: US
Language: English
"Got a rocket, in your pocket...play it cool" and "when you're a jet, you're a jet all the way. From your first cigarette, to your last dyin' day" are just a few snazzy lines from one of the nine musicals to win Best Picture at the Academy Awards. The other eight films are The Broadway Melody (1929), Going My Way (1944), An American in Paris (1951), Gigi (1958) , My Fair Lady (1964), The Sound of Music (1965), Oliver! (1968) and Chicago (2002). Many more have been nominated, but few compare to the nine that actually won. Though I'd argue that the more recent Chicago is the best of them, an argument could certainly be made for The Sound of Music, and most definitely West Side Story.
The white Jets led by Riff (Russ Tamblyn) and the Puerto Rican Sharks, led by Bernardo (George Chakiri), are two warring New York City gangs. Their hatred escalates to a point where neither can coexist with any form of understanding. But when Riff's best friend, and former Jet, Tony (Richard Beymer) and Bernardo's younger sister Maria (Natalie Wood) meet at a dance, no one can do anything to stop their love. Maria and Tony begin meeting in secret, planning to run away. Then the Sharks and Jets plan a rumble under the highway - whoever wins gains control of the streets.
West Side Story is a high energy modern musical adaptation of William Shakespeare's beloved play Romeo and Juliet. It should be held up as one of the greatest musicals ever made because of the vast amount of effort put into it. Astonishing dance sequences, especially the high school scene, fill the screen. Unlike recent musicals, like Les Miserable, the directors do not rely on closeups of the actor's faces to fill the onscreen emotion, rather the dance and the music substitute for facial expression and make it seem as though the sharks and Jets are about to explode into chaos in the streets.
However, this film does have a few flaws. West Side Story is almost an hour too long; the last portion of it drags and instead of enjoying it, you find yourself completely bored when waiting for it to end. A few songs and scenes should have been cut completely as they added very little to the plot or character, and perhaps Natalie Wood shouldn't have been cast as Maria. Though I do love Rita Moreno as the supporting character Anita, her presence and skills contributed greatly to this film's overall success. An interesting aspect of the film is its analysis of inequality between races in America. The song America expresses this quite well and its not hard to believe that the distress felt by Bernardo of The Sharks is the stress felt by most Puerto Ricans coming to America.
In conclusion, West Side Story is a magical film that is quite entertaining and technically masterful. Though it just scratches the surface of race inequality, at least it makes an attempt to bring it up. I suggest skipping most of the scenes after one of the lead characters is killed, because it drops from there. Still the picture is beautiful and will have you singing "I feel pretty" for many years after. 3.5/5
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