West Side Story
WITH the fresh re-imagining of West Side Story from Steven Spielberg about to open in multiplexes across the land, it feels like a good time to revisit Robert Wise's original 1961 take on that most beloved of musicals.
Since lyricist Stephen Sondheim also passed away recently, it's the perfect opportunity to remember some of his finest work as well.
The winner of 10 Academy Awards, the 1961 film version of the original Broadway smash from 1957 remains, despite the best intentions of Spielberg with his 21st century attempt at a reboot, an untouchable slice of coolly iconic cinematic class.
Co-directed by the play's original choreographer Jerome Robbins, its simple tale of inner city gang fighting, race relations and good old-fashioned juvenile delinquency still stands up to scrutiny today despite its age and the fact that it has been spoofed to within an inch of its life down the decades.
Any camped up 50s comedy parody on film or on TV looking for a shorthand way to reference the finger clicking, greased back hair, blue jeans and white socks aesthetic of gum chewing moody teenagers facing off on the "mean streets" of New York leans on it for inspiration.
If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then West Side Story has been seriously flattered down the years.
Speaking of imitation, it is of course a blatant update of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, with Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer playing the star-crossed lovers from across the social divide.
Their Tony and Maria are neatly stylised on screen and they are ably supported by a fine cast including Rita Moreno and George Chakiris. Here, it's rival street gangs (the Sharks and the Jets) and the clash between the white and Puerto Rican communities as their streets are torn asunder by 'slum clearance' plans in the 1950s that drives the story, but essentially this is a classic tale of love across the barricades and it's all the better for that – even if it's impossible to imagine a leading lady less Puerto Rican than Natalie Wood.
Watching it in 2021, the gang vibe is laughably unthreatening, unless you find dance delivered street 'violence' performed by lithe and balletic young Thespians particularly scary: but the impact of the production is still powerful.
Leonard Bernstein's peerless music and Sondheim's unforgettable lyrics imbue show stopping tracks like Somewhere, I Feel Pretty and America with real passion, and barely 10 minutes pass on screen without another musical classic arriving to punctuate the action.
The dance sequences jump from the screen with a vibrancy and vitality that set West Side Story apart from other musical offerings of the era and the beautifully visualised street sets and the colourful supporting cast make it a dazzling viewing experience despite the passing decades.
It is, of course, horrendously stage-bound to the point that you feel like you might just slip off for a choc ice and fizzy drink half-way through, but that's also a big part of its ongoing appeal I suppose.
A stylish, visual feast of a film, this is one story that will be re-told forever.
