Of all the street gang films out there, none has had more success than the film version of the Broadway musical West Side Story, that 20th Century updating of Shakespeare's Romeo And Juliet.
I first saw it years ago, in a revival in the mid-70s. I am not big on musicals, for they succeed or fail based solely on the quality of the music. The Rodgers and Hammerstein films of the 1940s and 1960s, while having good music, were boring as shit. This film, while overrated, is still pretty enjoyable, with music and lyrics by Leonard Bersnstein and Stephen Sondheim.
Here is a clip of America:
And here is the ballad Somewhere:
Natalie Wood was terribly miscast, and her voice had to be dubbed. Rita Moreno steals every scene she's in, and there's really no male actor that is memorable, but, the songs are very good. What more should one expect from a musical?
