West Side Story marked a small revolution in the history of the Hollywood musical when it was released in 1961. Enriched by Leonard Bernstein’s marvellously brassy, challenging score–as redolent of the place as anything Gershwin ever wrote–the location shooting and aerial views of the Manhattan grid made New York a gritty backdrop to this modern interpretation of Romeo and Juliet.
The film rightly became an instant classic which won ten Oscars and brought some of the greatest numbers in the era of the modern musical to a global audience. Everything gels, from Jerome Robbins’ superlative choreography (he retains a director’s credit with Robert Wise, although anxious studio bosses removed him from the film when costs started to mount), to Ernest Lehman’s taught screenplay, some of Sondheim’s most accessible early lyrics, and passionate, raw performances from the gang members and the lovers.
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