rating:
(out of
4 stars)United States; 1961
Directed by Jerome Robbins & Robert Wise; produced by Robert Wise; written by Ernest Lehman
Starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris, Simon Oakland, Ned Glass
Below you will find a temporary review for this film. The real (better, more complete) review will be online very soon.
The classic musical 'West Side Story' is still pretty good and effective
today, but I would not call it a great movie. If you compare this with
'Singin' in the Rain', in my opinion the best movie musical out there, you
see that 'West Side Story' is just a nice movie, nothing more. Even the
songs are not as catchy as the ones from the simple movie musical 'Grease',
although there are some exceptions. ("Maria", "I Feel Pretty" and "America"
belong to the best known musical numbers.) The story, borrowed from
Shakespeare's 'Romeo & Juliet', tells about two street gangs. One exists out
of European descendants, the other out of Puerto Ricans. Tony (Richard
Beymer), a former leader of the Europeans who call themselves the Jets,
falls in love with Maria (Natalie Wood), a Puerto Rican girl. Her brother
Bernardo (George Chakiris) is the leader of the Puerto Ricans, or the
Sharks, so things do not look good. Things look even worse when new Jets
leader Riff (Russ Tamblyn) and Bernardo agree to a fight where winner takes
all, in this case the West Side of Manhattan.
The simple story keeps our attention easily, but I was constantly aware of
the fact how strange dancing gangs look. Of course I am not supposed to
think about that, but I could not help myself. Some say Chakiris gives a
powerful performance, in my opinion he is simply implausible as a gang
leader. I never believed a single thing he did. The same goes for Beymer by
the way, who really bad and sometimes annoying as Tony. One of the few
plausible gang members is Riff, but then there is always the singing and
dancing. Natalie Wood does a lot better than the male actors, although her
accent was not the best thing either. The best performance comes from
Bernardo's love interest Anita, played by Rita Moreno.
Now it must sound I really did not like this movie, but that is not true. It
is more entertaining than most movies and it chooses an ending that is
perfect for the story. If this movie was made today, it had to end
differently. The best thing here is the choreography. Although it is strange
to see gangs dancing, they do a perfect job, perfectly choreographed by
Jerome Robbins. In a way 'West Side Story' is a treasure because they just
don't make them like this anymore. That it has flaws is too bad, but it is
definitely worth watching.