West Side Story

3.50
    West Side Story
    1961

    Synopsis

    In the slums of the upper West Side of Manhattan, New York, a gang of Polish-American teenagers called the Jets compete with a rival gang of recently immigrated Puerto Ricans, the Sharks, to "own" the neighborhood streets. Tensions are high between the gangs but two romantics, one from each gang, fall in love leading to tragedy.

    Your Movie Library

    Cast

    • Natalie WoodMaria
    • Richard BeymerTony
    • Russ TamblynRiff
    • Rita MorenoAnita
    • George ChakirisBernardo
    • Simon OaklandLieutenant Schrank
    • Ned GlassDoc
    • William BramleyOfficer Krupke
    • Tucker SmithIce
    • Tony MordenteAction

    Recommendations

    • 100

      Chicago Sun-Times

      West Side Story remains a landmark of musical history. But if the drama had been as edgy as the choreography, if the lead performances had matched Moreno's fierce concentration, if the gangs had been more dangerous and less like bad-boy Archies and Jugheads, if the ending had delivered on the pathos and tragedy of the original, there's no telling what might have resulted.
    • 100

      Variety

      West Side Story is a beautifully-mounted, impressive, emotion-ridden and violent musical which, in its stark approach to a raging social problem and realism of unfoldment, may set a pattern for future musical presentations. Screen takes on a new dimension in this powerful and sometimes fascinating translation of the Broadway musical to the greater scope of motion pictures.
    • 100

      The New York Times

      What they have done with West Side Story in knocking it down and moving it from stage to screen is to reconstruct its fine material into nothing short of a cinema masterpiece...In every respect, the recreation of the Arthur Laurents-Leonard Bernstein musical in the dynamic forms of motion pictures is superbly and appropriately achieved.
    • 100

      The Hollywood Reporter

      West Side Story is a magnificent show, a milestone in movie musicals, a box-office smash. It is so good that superlatives are superfluous. Let it be noted that the film musical, the one dramatic form that is purely American and purely Hollywood, has never been done better
    • 100

      The Telegraph

      Jerome Robbins’s legendary choreography needs the biggest screen it can get; when the movie’s firing on all cylinders of music, lyrics and motion (twice: “America” and “Gee, Officer Krupke”) there’s little to touch it.
    • 100

      Empire

      This really is the musical for people who don’t like musicals.
    • 100

      Los Angeles Times

      I daresay most spectators will also find the pull of this film irresistible. The — hardest — problem faced by its adapters must have been one of intangibles — how to make an essentially ballet-opera form believable as realistic cinema — and they have all but licked it. West Side Story never quite shakes off an aura of pretentiousness but its portentousness is stronger and that is all to the good.
    • 90

      New York Daily News

      The film adaptation of Robert E. Griffith’s and Harold S. Prince’s stage production of “West Side Story” retains all the vibrant qualities of the original work while added brilliance and originality have been brought to the screen presentation.

    Liked by