West Side Story

This is going to be a hard movie to review. Not because its a bad movie, or because its necessarily a musical, while that is a part of it. The main reason this movie is hard to review is that it was made in the 60's from the Broadway musical of the same name.

I'm going to do my best however to give my best review of the movie from a story standpoint and I'll try and give my best review of the music. I won't go too in depth because I don't do review on music. I have experience singing but most of the view I will have will just be on personal preference.

West Side Story is basically the retelling of William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, told in the setting of New York in the 50's.

A neighborhood of New York is split between two gangs, a white/ Italian gang called the Jets and a Puerto Rican gang called The Sharks.

Its the typical Romeo and Juliet story where the Romero character, or Tony is on one side, the Jets, and the Juliet character, Maria (played by Natalie Wood) is the sister of the leader of the opposing gang, the Sharks.

They fall in love with no explanation at first sight but are torn apart by the two worlds they believe will never come together.

I guess what I'll be looking into mostly with this movie is the performances throughout the movie and how well the movie holds up today.

West Side Story was not one of the first movie musicals but for the time, and even today its considered one of the best.

It also adapted into a movie only about four movies and it was as if they went straight from the stage to the screen. A lot of the scenes look as though they're acting on stage as opposed to in front of a screen. Now there is credit to be given because while the movie sometimes feels as though its a play, they really did a good job expanding it to the screen. They have full sound stages and locations to do a lot more than what they could do on a single stage.

Furthermore, the acting is incredibly overplayed and cheesy and I think that's also evident of the stage performance. Don't quote me on this but I believe that a lot of the actors in this movie are originally stage actors. You can definitely tell who is and who isn't.

And then you had Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer, actors who weren't stage actors. And they kind of just pull off the typical Romeo and Juliet storyline.

Doug Walker did an editorial on his channel about the themes of Romeo and Juliet and if they relate to today's society.

Here is the editorial

While Doug doesn't focus on West Side story, a lot of what he says applies to West Side Story. Its interesting because while Romeo and Juliet has more themes than the idea of love at first sight, love is one of the most prevalent parts of the play.

Romeo and Juliet is kind of dying in popularity mainly because people don't really relate to the story as much as they used to. It works and was popular in West Side Story due to the height of the civil rights movement. The movie was able to point out the tragedy of racism and prejudice.

But now the whole love at first sight really doesn't sell. With a huge concern in a lot of movies to be politically correct, women may not appreciate the views of women and "knowing their place". There are other parts that while the movie is suppose to be pushing for the equal treatment of everyone, is really politically incorrect. Almost to the point of wondering what parts were pointing out racism and which parts were just the words of the time.

But apart from the unpopular themes of Romeo and Juliet, how does West Side Story hold up today?

Well if you like musicals and have seen West Side Story on Broadway, chances are, you will like this movie. If you like movies and acting from the sixties, you may like this movie too. However, the acting is so corny and really overdone that some people may not really like it.

Now as far as performances go, the dancing in the movie is some of the most memorable and really well done dancing in a musical. That's actually what West Side Story is known for. The singing on the other hand is kind of hit or miss.

The singing of Natalie Wood and Richard Beyemer was actually dubbed over by different voices. Maria's singing voice was done by Marni Nixon who actually did the singing for lots of movies like My Fair Lady and The King and I. I think the singing is really good for those two.

And then there's Russ Tamblyn who plays Riff, Tony's best friend.

His voice is kind of shit. Its fun for songs like Officer Krupke but when he's singing his own solos, its actually really shitty. It doesn't really take away from his acting because he does a good job, considering the movie.

I sat through this movie with my roommate and he actually considered it one of the worst things he had to sit through. Now he's not an incredible musical fan, he likes some musicals here and there but he doesn't get his kicks from them.

I find his thoughts on the movie interesting because he's speaking just as a movie watcher. Of course there are some people that just don't like musicals whatsoever but a movie should be able to bring you in regardless of whether or not the people in it sing.

To today's standards, West Side Story just looks a little silly.

I think I appreciate the movie mainly due to the fact that I have a background in musicals. Not really enough to critique it throughly but West Side Story is really a movie from a different time. I don't really know if it stands up to the test of time but its a fun time nonetheless, especially if you get some alcohol in you.

So there are my thoughts on West Side Story. Have you seen it? What did you think of it? Do you think it holds up to today's standards?

I'll leave you with this. Big surprise, I'm pulling out another After Hours discussion. Its totally about musicals and brings some fun theories about the Musical universe. Enjoy!