Trailer
Plot summary
In 1957 New York City, the Jets, white teenagers led by Riff, and the Sharks, a Puerto Rican gang led by Bernardo, fight for control of the Upper West Side. Police break up a brawl, and Riff's Jets challenge Bernardo's Sharks to a rumble. Riff wants his best friend Tony, a Jets co-founder who has drifted away, to fight. Bernardo's younger sister Maria is eager for a dance that night. There Tony and Maria meet and fall in love, and Bernardo forbids it.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about West Side Story (1961)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- After 45 days of shooting the picture was 24 days behind schedule and over budget, so Robert Wise dismissed his co-director Jerome Robbins; Robbins's assistants helped direct the remaining dance numbers, and Wise agreed that Robbins should still be given co-directing credit.
- Elvis Presley was approached for Tony, but his manager Colonel Tom Parker turned the part down. Marlon Brando, Robert Redford, Warren Beatty, Anthony Perkins, Bobby Darin, Russ Tamblyn and Troy Donahue were also considered, with Burt Reynolds judged "too tough" and Richard Chamberlain "too mature".
- While considering Warren Beatty for Tony, Robert Wise requested a reel of his work; after seeing a clip from Splendor in the Grass the producers decided his co-star Natalie Wood, who was involved with Beatty romantically off-screen, was perfect for Maria, and that Beatty was not suitable for Tony.
- Marni Nixon, whose voice replaced Natalie Wood's singing, learned she had never signed a contract for the recording; when she demanded a percentage of the LP she was told all percentages had been allocated, so Leonard Bernstein gave her 0.25% of his album royalties, setting a precedent for all future "ghost singers".
SPOILER
Natalie Wood pre-recorded her songs and filmed her scenes lip-synching to her own vocals, believing those versions would be used, although music supervisors Saul Chaplin and Johnny Green had already decided to use Marni Nixon's voice; Wood's own singing is heard only in the reprise of "Somewhere" when Tony dies.- West Side Story won 10 Academy Awards, the most Oscar wins for a musical film, and it was the first film to have the Academy Award for Best Director shared between two people.
- West Side Story influenced Michael Jackson's "Beat It" and "Bad" music videos; "Beat It" casts Jackson as a peacemaker between two rival gangs in homage to what he called his favorite film.
- The stage show had been orchestrated for roughly 30 musicians; for the movie United Artists allowed triple that, including six saxophone parts, eight trumpets, five pianos and five xylophones, and Leonard Bernstein found the result "overbearing and lacking in texture and subtlety".
