One Hand, One Heart, One Masterpiece

To say that the greatest Broadway musicals don’t always receive worthy Hollywood film transfers would be the understatement of the millennium. After all, for every Sound of Music there’s a South Pacific, for every Cabaret a Chorus Line. But when Hollywood does get a musical right, the results tend to be magnificent.

Ever since its release in 1961, the big screen adaptation of the Leonard Bernstein-Stephen Sondheim-Arthur Laurents-Jerome Robbins masterwork West Side Story has been loved and admired by critics and audiences in equal measure. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences was certainly a fan of the film, handing it 10 Oscars. WSS made its DVD debut a couple of years ago but that disc was a mediocre affair with bare-bones packaging, good but not great picture and sound quality, and no extras. Now, happily, the film has been given the lavish “special edition” treatment by MGM Home Entertainment.

The new DVD set carries a relatively hefty price tag of $39.98, but once you open it and see what you’ve got, that won’t seem expensive at all. Two discs — one carrying the feature film in a new 16×9 widescreen transfer, the other containing such extras as a documentary, photo galleries, trailers, and the film’s intermission music — are found in a handsome, fold-out box. And then there’s the big bonus: a substantial, beautifully designed “scrapbook” including the film script, behind-the-scenes memos, a reproduction of the original lobby brochure, a new essay by screenwriter Ernest Lehman, and lots of photos — many of them in full color.

The package is impressive in every respect, but the one-hour documentary found on disc two is really something special. It features new interviews with author Laurents, lyricist Sondheim, director Robert Wise, and executive producer Walter Mirisch, plus on-screen talent Richard Beymer (Tony), Russ Tamblyn (Riff), Rita Moreno (Anita), and two of the Jets: Tony Mordente (the former Mr. Chita Rivera) and Harvey Hohnecker (now Harvey Evans). It also includes fascinating “home movies” of the filming of several sequences. While the documentary gives short shrift to the 1957 Broadway show, it does have some spectacularly vivid color photos of the production that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before; Carol Lawrence and Larry Kert, the original Maria and Tony, look so movie-star beautiful in these shots that one wonders if they were ever considered to repeat their roles in the film.

The documentary is chock-full of information about co-director/choreographer Jerome Robbins’s firing from the film before its completion. Also, we hear from several of those involved that Robbins was a taskmaster who usually got results through humiliation and intimidation. (This is not exactly news, but it’s good to have it on the record.) Other noteworthy tidbits: Maria’s final speech — the one that begins “How do you fire this gun, Chino?” — was written by Laurents as a dummy lyric for an aria that Bernstein never found the inspiration to compose. Though most of the film’s location work was done on West 61st Street near the current site of Lincoln Center, the playground that’s featured prominently in the prologue was on East 110th Street. Scheduled for two to three weeks, the NYC shoot extended to two full months, partly because of rain but also because Robbins insisted on so many takes — hence, his dismissal. Most interesting of all, Stephen Sondheim tells how he had unsuccessfully argued during rehearsals of the Broadway production that the placement of the Jets’ numbers “Cool” and “Gee, Officer Krupke” should be switched; needless to say, he was delighted that this was done for the film.

The DVD box trumpets The New York Times‘ assessment of West Side Story as “a cinema masterpiece,” and there’ll be no disagreement from this corner. Starting off with brilliant source material, the film’s creators worked up a remarkably skillful adaptation that shines in many ways but particularly in terms of direction, design, cinematography, and editing. Of necessity, WSS was cast with movie stars rather than with talented unknowns, which would have been a far more risky way to go. But few if any established stars could have handled the piece’s singing and dancing requirements, and so the flick is haunted by vocal ghosts. Marni Nixon sings for Wood, Jim Bryant for Beymer, and Betty Wand for Moreno. Tucker Smith, who plays Ice in the movie and sings “Cool” in that role, also belts out “The Jet Song” for Tamblyn, though Tamblyn’s own voice is heard in “Gee, Officer Krupke” and in his few solo lines in the “Tonight” ensemble. Oh, and Marni Nixon sings for Moreno in the final section of the “Tonight” ensemble. (Are you still with me?)

As I wrote in an August 2002 TheaterMania article in which I rated West Side Story as one of the 10 best film adaptations of a Broadway musical, the fact that almost all of the solo singing in this movie is done by people other than those who appear on screen doesn’t sink WSS because the dubbing is so extraordinarily well done. One of the most fascinating things about the DVD documentary is that it allows us to sample Natalie Wood’s actual singing voice in sections of two numbers, “I Feel Pretty” and the “Tonight” ensemble, as well as Russ Tamblyn’s “Jet Song.” We don’t get to hear Rita Moreno’s vocal tracks, assuming she ever recorded the songs in the first place, but we do get to hear her complain about Betty Wand’s interpretation of “A Boy Like That.” (Let it go, Rita!)

Less than a month after 9/11/01, West Side Story had a 40th anniversary screening at Radio City Music Hall. All of the surviving leads attended, as did several other cast members and the physically infirm but still vital Robert Wise. As Wise says in the DVD documentary, WSS “played like gangbusters” on that memorable occasion: When a shot of the Manhattan skyline appeared on screen at the top of the movie, I thought the audience response was going to take the roof off of the place, and there were many more cheers throughout the evening.

Of course, the new DVD set doesn’t include the huge screen or the 6,000 rabid fans of the flick that helped make the Radio City showing an unforgettable experience. But it does give you West Side Story itself, beautifully transferred in its correct aspect ratio and with superb sound, for enjoyment whenever you feel the urge. Buy or rent the package, have some friends over, revel in the excellence of the movie — and, as you do so, join me in the hope that the recent awarding of six Oscars to Chicago will jump-start a new golden age of movies based on Broadway musicals.