West Side Story

1961.

#41 / #51

Winner of 10 Academy Awards.

Maria (Natalie Wood) is a Puerto Rican girl in love with Tony (Richard Beymer), a Jet in New York City. The Jets and the Sharks (the Puerto Rican gang) are enemies, which makes Tony and Maria's love very difficult.

Sarah: When you're a jet, you're a jet all they way! I was obsessed with this musical for some time. It's very fun, until it get's sad. I love the dance-fighting and the music.

Natalie Wood, though I'm a fan, is terribly miscast here. And that's too bad because the rest of the movie is so well done. A lot of musicals feel like the director just set a camera in front of a stage, but this movie has a lot of movement, especially the opening sequence and the quintet leading up to the rumble. Maybe because the songs are so catchy, but there is something very pulling about this film.

Eddie: This is one of the most frustrating movies I've ever seen. Unlike Sarah, I don't enjoy watching balletic gang fights. If I'm gonna watch a rumble on screen, I want it to be scrappy, messy, and bloody as all hell. Watching classically trained, male ballerinas dance through New York Street on some studio backlot doesn't get me giddy with glee. I realize that the choreography is an homage to the original Broadway musical, but I really hate it.

I agree with Sarah that the casting of Natalie Wood misses the mark, but it's worth pointing out that Rita Moreno is dynamite in this movie.

The unsung heroes of this film, though, are the directors - Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. Sarah remarked that this musical uses a lot of camera movement, and that's probably because of these two all-star directors. Robbins, a choreographer by trade, and Wise, a blockbuster director, combined their talents to make the musical come to life.

Why You Should See it: The quintet "Tonight" shows how they brought the musical to life on screen.