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vendredi 29 mars 2024

Cast List

 

Performer

Character

Performer

Character

Performer

Character

Natalie Wood

Maria

George Chakiris

Bernardo

David Winters

A-Rab

Richard Beymer

Tony

Tucker Smith

Ice

Burt Michaels

Snowboy

Russ Tamblyn

Riff

Tony Mordente

Action

Robert Banas

Joyboy

Rita Moreno

Anita

Eliot Feld

Baby John

Scooter Teague

Big Deal

Tommy Abbott

Gee-Tar

Harvey Hohnecker

Mouthpiece

David Bean

Tiger

Sue Oakes

Anybodys

Gina Trikonis

Graziella

Carole D'Andrea

Velma

 

Winner of ten Academy Awards, including Best Picture, WEST SIDE STORY is a triumph of style over substance. The thin story was a transplant of Romeo and Juliet conceived for the stage by Jerome Robbins. [...]

The play opened in September 1957, enjoyed a run of 734 performances at New York's Winter Garden Theatre, and has since been successfully revived several times.

2) Synopsis

It begins with a remarkable opening shot from a helicopter in which the West Side of Manhattan (specifically the "Hell's Kitchen" area) is seen as a series of geometric patterns.

It then zooms in to one particular area as if to say "We've chosen this section, but if we opted for another neighborhood, the story would have been different, but equally interesting." The credits by Saul Bass appear as graffiti scrawled on walls and set the tone immediately.

Jets and Sharks

The viewer is then plunged into the tragic tale of two lovers from separate worlds. There is great racial tension between the established Anglo gang, the Jets, and the Puerto Ricans, known as the Sharks.

They are all teenagers (or supposed to be) in conflict over "turf" in their area. The Sharks are lead by Bernardo (George Chakiris) whose tempestuous girlfriend is Anita (Rita Moreno).

Truce

There is a sort of truce between the two gangs, and when Bernardo's sister, Maria (Natalie Wood), arrives from Puerto Rico, she is warned by Anita to stay away from the Anglos. Maria doesn't heed the warning.

Star-crossed lovers

Maria meets Tony (Richard Beymer), a Polish boy who is one of the Jets. The young lovers fall hard for each other, thus incurring the wrath of both gangs (who, after a fashion, represent the warring Montagues and Capulets of Shakespeare's tragedy). There are warnings and threats, and the result is a final showdown between the gangs.

Rumble

Maria tries to stop the impending battle by persuading Tony into a show of peace but fails, and the leader of the Jets, Riff (Russ Tamblyn), dies in a knife fight with Bernardo. Tony has been calm and cool to this point, but at seeing his pal stabbed, he grabs a knife and stabs Bernardo to death. Now he races to Maria's side and pleads with her to understand why he did what he did and how there was no way out. He also asks that she go away with him to a better place.

They are about to leave when Tony is tracked down by the surviving members of the Sharks, trapped in a playground, then killed by the gang. Maria kneels beside Tony and cries bitterly while members of both gangs watch. In the end, the gangs join forces to haul the dead Tony out of the playground, and there is a faint glimmer of hope that the carnage may have ceased with his demise.

 

3) Critique

Made at a price of about $6 million, WEST SIDE STORY went on to become one of the most popular film musicals in history, along with MY FAIR LADY (1964), THE SOUND OF MUSIC (1965), MARY POPPINS (1964), and GREASE (1978). It's a melange of fantasy and reality and doesn't always work. The sets were obvious sets, and the streets were obvious streets, thus jarring the senses somewhat. They might have done better had they remained with one style rather than attempting to blend them.

Film's assets

The greatest asset to the play and the film was the dancing by Robbins. It's a combination of ballet, acrobatics, and jazz, and even though the picture of tough gang members doing obvious steps brought laughter to streetwise youngsters in New York, that didn't seem to matter to the rest of the country, which had no idea what gang life was like in reality.

Robbins used the palette of the screen to create even more spectacular dance numbers than had been seen on stage, and the result is exciting showmanship in every scene he personally oversaw.

Flaws

Maria was a wonderful actress but had some trouble maintaining the accent, and Beymer, while handsome enough, didn't appear to have the power to make him one of the leaders of such a tough gang.

The costumes were also on the fanciful side and hardly indicated what the real people who lived in the area might have worn. Tamblyn's casting as the Sharkmaster was also an error; not that he isn't a good actor and a fine dancer, he just didn't look right in the role of a hard-boiled type.

Background

On a radio interview, lyricist Stephen Sondheim was quoted years later as saying that, although the play received wonderful notices from the New York critics, the score did not. Hardly anyone mentioned his lyrics or Leonard Bernstein's music; all they raved about was the staging and dancing. It wasn't until this movie was about to be released and the power of a large studio got behind it that the tunes began to be plugged on the radio, and the result was several hits.

Since Wood was not a singer or a dancer, some creativity had to be exercised to make it appear that she was. Using someone else's voice as the singer is easy enough but faking the dancing required some careful planning. She was handed some easy steps to do, but through excellent camera planning it appeared that she was doing more than she actually was.

Music

Sondheim and Bernstein's songs were: "Prologue" (the Jets and the Sharks), "Jet Song" (Tamblyn, the Jets), "Something's Coming" (Beymer), "Dance at the Gym" (Wood, Beymer, Jets, Sharks), "Maria" (Beymer), "America" (Moreno, Chakiris, Sharks, and Female Sharks), "Tonight" (Wood, Beymer), "One Hand, One Heart" (Wood, Beymer), "Gee, Officer Krupke" (Tamblyn, Jets), "Quintet" (Beymer, Wood, Moreno, Sharks, Jets), "Rumble" (Jets, Sharks), "Cool" (Tucker Smith, Jets), "I Feel Pretty" (Wood, Suzie Kaye, Yvonne Othon, Joanne Miya), "Somewhere" (Beymer, Wood), "A Boy Like That," and "I Have a Heart" (Wood, Moreno).

Although Wood and Beymer are listed as singing the songs, neither of their voices were on the sound track. Wood's "voice" was actually done by veteran Marni Nixon, who also sang for Audrey Hepburn in MY FAIR LADY. Beymer's voice was substituted by Jimmy Bryant.

A number of eminent jazz musicians worked on the sound track, including Al Viola, Red Mitchell, Jack Dumont, Shelly Manne, and Pete Candoli.

 

© 1996 Microsoft Corporation and/or its suppliers. All rights reserved.

 

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