West Side Story (1961)

Directed by Robert Wise & Jerome Robbins. Starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, George Chakiris, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, Tucker Smith, Jose De Vega, Simon Oakland, Ned Glass, Eliot Feld, Susan Oakes, Tony Mordente, David Winters, John Astin.

Bold, expansive adaptation of the Broadway musical hit is often glorious to look at, frustrating to absorb. Rival NYC gangs the Jets (white) and the Sharks (Puerto Rican) are both at a boiling point of hostility with each other, but so, too, boils over the shared lust between Beymer and Wood—one a member of the Jets, the other a sister of a Sharks member. Its dumbed-down Romeo and Juliet storyline is flimsy and the dialogue is saccharine and trite, but no one expects actual Shakespeare-level writing in a splashy musical. Its main issues are: 1) after the fantastically fun first twenty minutes, nothing else that comes after can match that energy and exhilaration (not even the dance scene or the rumble), and 2) while several supporting cast members do fine work (Chakiris, Moreno and Tamblyn especially), the two leads are complete duds—even ignoring the wretched miscasting of Wood as Maria—and the movie comes to a screeching halt anytime they’re meant to carry a scene. Robbins’ choreography is mostly top-shelf; the Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim songs are a grab-bag (even a couple of the “classics” have always been blah) but catchy enough on average. Hardly the landmark it’s heralded to be (10 Oscar wins, including Best Picture and Director(s)), but still worth it to sit through the morass to get to the grandeur.

60/100