Musicals are not a favorite genre. In fact, growing up in the sixties, the major musical stars were able to sustain massive fan bases strictly on their audio recordings. There was a notable exception, Elvis Presley, whose sixties musicals actually lost fans to the more creative Beatles, Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones.
However, many successful musicals were made in the sixties. West Side Story, which won ten Oscars, was the first one.. For me, it's the best and holds up extremely well. Though the viewer believe for one second that they're watching gang members, it presented race relations in such a way that would not only frustrate Maria and Tony, it would actual slayings and an attempted rape in this musical.
The songs are top natch, especially the haunting "Maria", but there's not a bad song in this Bernstein-Sondheim score. Add the choreograhy of Jerome Robbins and the visual editing skills of veteran director Robert Wise and this is one movie I have seen over and over again with much pleasure.
Top billed Natalie Wood actually gave her best performance of her career in her previous movie "Splendor In the Grass." She also was the female lead in James Dean's best movie "Rebel Without a Cause" and though brief, a very pivital role in John Wayne's best movie "The Searchers." Yes, she's actually Russian but she made a perfect Maria and very believable as a Puerto Rican. Richard Breymar as Tony was very acceptable. Even beter was Russ Tamblyn as Riff and the Oscar winning performances of George Chakiris as Bernardo and Rita Moreno as his lover, Anita.
Minus the Juliette suicide, this is an updated version of Shakepeare's Romeo and Juliet. The Jets and the Sharks are what we first see. Though they sing and dance, there is an underlying message of racism on both sides. Riff as the leader, sings out the Jet theme song. Afterwards, he meets Tony, who's got a job loading and unloading crates for the neighborhood store. He agrees to come to the dance and feels that something's coming.
That something is Maria, at her first dance being overprotected by her brother Bernardo, who've we've eariler as the leader of the Sharks. Tony and Maria lock eyes and everything else goes out of focus. Reality, mainly Bernardo and Riff, snaps them out of it and there's going to be a rumble soon. Tony's in loves and sings he can't stop saying Maria.
My favorite choregraphed scene is Anita and Bernardo doing their tete-a-tele with America. There's dark humor in the lyrics and the men and the women have their dancing moments to shine.
Tony meets Maria at the back stairways and declare their love for each other. They meet where Maria works and have a touching pretend wedding scene with the clothes. Anita disapproves but lets them. Maria begs Tony to stop the rumble and actually reduces it a single fist fight. The Jets do a great comedy song Officer Krukey and there's a big chorus of "Tonight" by the major characters.
However, at the rumble, Tony arrives to stop the fight and gets baited as a chicken. This angers Riff who pulls out a knife. So does Bernardo and he kills Riff. Right away, Tony kills Bernardo and gang members flee from the two dead bodies.
Tony spends the night with Maria and when he leaves, askes Maria to meet him to leave. Rita, extremely angry that Maria slept with Bernardo's killer, nevertheless agrees to go to the store where Tony works to pick up the money. However, the Jets member almost rape her and she tells them that Maria has killed herself. This drives Tony crazy. He runs out of the streets begging Chico to kill him as well, which Chico does. The movie ends with "Somewhere" and Maria demanding a truce of the gangs.
Now you don't have to see the movie, but see it anyway.