West Side Story Movie - 50th Anniversary

West Side Story Celebrates Its 50th Anniversary This Year

The Broadway musical came to the big screen on 18th October 1961 in New York and was followed a week later with a premiere in Los Angeles.

It cost an estimated $6,000,000 and has grossed over $43 million at the box office.

Next month, West Side Story celebrates its 50th birthday.

It was one of a number of really good musicals in the 1960s converted from Broadway and west end shows into movies (Oliver also did very week both on stage and in the cinema).

West Side Story celebrates its 50th anniversary early next month - it has stood the test of time and can still en thrall audiences from start to finish.

West Side Story - 50 Years Old but Ageing Well

When you watch West Side Story now, what seems to leap out for the viewer is the vivid colour but also the youth and energy.

The musical was based on William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and that play has as its main theme, two warring families, the Montagues and Capulets.

In West Side Story, we have two warring ethnic street gangs, the Sharks and the Jets.

Instead of Juliet, we have Maria, played by a young, beautiful Natalie Wood and Romeo becomes Tony, the former founder of the Jets (but now he has left).

West Side Story uses Romeo and Juliet as a template for the story and even Shakespeare wasn't the first writer to bring this story to dramatic light. The original Romeo And Juliet was written by Arthur Brook in 1562, the story of 'an vnfortunate coople, thrilling themselves to vnhonest desires, neglecting the authoritie of parents and frends' (original translation from old English prose).

West Side Story brings the story to the stage first in 1957 where the book by Arthur Laurents relied on Romeo and Juliet for its basic story but Laurent knew the second part of West Side Story could not end with the doomed lovers swallowing bottles of poison so he developed the story in a different, but equally tragic direction.

The book was used again for the film but the music was provided by classical composer, Leonard Bernstein and lyricist, Stephen Sondheim.

Bernstein was already a well-respected conductor and composer.

He had been innovative in conducting a number of little-known symphonies during the 50s and his career seems to be full of such incidences. He was happy to go off the beaten path occasionally, often in search of professional fulfilment which might single him out.

In spite of this, he is most widely known and respected for West Side Story. Bernstein saw in Laurent's book a real verve, energy and moreover, an opportunity to marry a brave orchestral score with great singers.

He fought against the musical becoming too 'operatic'; he avoided singers who were operatic in style whilst still maintaining a musical integrity for which he was well known.

He wanted the young performers in the film to convey their youth, vigour and at least the impression or conceit that they really were 'from the streets'. Operatic voices would lose this energy and make the film something very different.

Robert Wise was completely on board with this - he believes in Bernstein and Sondheim. He trusted their musical instincts and as a gifted director himself, he was able to bring the play to the screen without losing any of the spontaneity of the original live stage performance.  In fact, Robert Wise always maintained he co-directed the movie with the choreographer, Jerome Robbins and both of them were awarded an Oscar for 'Best Director' on the movie.

Conflict in West Side Story - Sharks v Jets

Just as in Romeo and Juliet, conflict lies at the heart of West Side Story. If it wasn't for the conflict, this would just be a love story and I know most of us enjoy a good love story but conflict brings the love story a new dimension.

West Side Story uses ethnicity as a source of conflict - natives v immigrants- The Jets are white Americans, the Sharks are of puerto-rican heritage.

The prologue of West Side Story sets up the rest of the film with the Sharks and Jets facing one another down in a basketball game.

Riff (Russ Tamblyn) is the leader of the Jets, a gang of local, poor white youths. George Chakiris plays Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The Sharks are a also a gang of local Puerto Rican boys, who have settled in the area,

The movie was made at a time of racial tension in the USA so it was a brave movie, very much 'of its time'.

Against this immediate conflict is an equally immediate moment of the recognition of love between two people, Tony and Maria.

The scene is set - will the conflict resolve so that Tony and Maria will find love from both sides of the divide?

Singing AND Dancing - West Side Story, Colour, Movement, Cinemascope

The man responsible for the choreography on West Side Story, Jerome Robbins had the good fortune to work with some amazing dancers on the movie. George Chakiris, as well as being very good-looking is almost balletic in his dancing style and Russ Tamblyn had already shown his mettle with movies like Seven Brides For Seven Brothers.

Rita Moreno dances her socks off in one of the movie's showstoppers, 'America' and the dances with the whole gang dancing together are wonderfully colourful and energetic.

Whilst some of the actors were also able to dance, two of the main actors, Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer were not great vocalists and had their singing overdubbed by superior singers. Natalie Wood's vocals were provided by Marni Nixon (who also provided vocals for Audrey Hepburn on My Fair Lady).

There is something so vital in all of the dance numbers that even today, fifty years later, we can imagine that Riff, Bernardo and the others are somehow ageless and yet there is also something wonderfully nostalgic about their clothes, their hairstyles, their way of talking to one another and to those in authority ('Gee Officer Krupke' wouldn't be what we'd expect now?)

Rita Moreno's dancing is red-hot Latin-American, swirling skirts, circles of rich, vibrant colour.

She makes you want to get up and dance. The clever matching of colours in the 'America' routine is very clever too, could Aniita's dress and Bernardo's shirt be a better match?

Daniel L Fapp was the cinematographer on West Side Story and he and Robert Wise worked very closely together to try to replicate New York's lower West Side.

Fapp's best work though, is to be seen on the many sound stage sets used in a lot of the dance sequences.

West Side Story uses colour throughout the film to dramatic effect.

'Moulin Rouge' offers a similar assault on the eyes with Baz Luhrman at the helm in the movie of the same name released in 2001.

Lots of colour, lots of movement with backdrops which could be used as amazing contrasts - you remember whole scenes because of the skill with which they were put together.

West Side Story Awards - Stage And Screen

West Side Story won an amazing 10 Oscars:-

Best Picture (Robert Wise), Best Supporting Actor (Chakiris), Best Supporting Actress (Morino), Best Director (Wise & Robbins) and of course Cinematography (Fapp), among others.

Of the original cast, Russ Tamblyn and Natalie Wood had very successful movie careers. Chakiris, although a talented actor, singer and dancer did not really have great success as a movie actor. He continued to work in the theatre, in New York and London but saw more success as a TV actor throughout the 70s and 80s. He is now a successful businessman.

Rita Moreno, in spite of winning an Oscar and more or less stealing the movie, had limited success after West Side Story and was mainly offered "more gang movies" but she was a trooper - she became the first actress to win an Oscar, a Tony, an Emmy and a Grammy; one of only 10 artiste to achieve this accolade.

So How Will The Movie Celebrate Its 50th Anniversary?

Well the stage version of West Side Story had a wonderful idea for its 50th anniversary in 2008 - they released it again onto the West End Stage.

You can read all about the celebration by clicking here

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