Maria Marauder: The West Side Story

Wednesday, June 22, 2011

The West Side Story

All of us want our love stories to end in a typical fairy tale. So what happens if the ending goes against our preconceived fantasies, like in the case of the ill-fated lovers Romeo and Juliet?

Accept your heart's destiny, my dear. If it’s not meant to be, it will never be.

Movie Review: The West Side Story (1961)

The Story:

Westside story is the award winning 1960’s adaptation of the classic romantic tragedy, Romeo and Juliet. The two belong to two feuding gangs in New York City-the white Jets led by Riff, and the Puerto Rican Sharks, led by Bernardo. When Riff's best friend (and former Jet) Tony and Bernardo's younger sister Maria meet at a dance, no one can do anything to stop their love. Maria and Tony begin meeting in secret, planning to run away. Then the Sharks and Jets plan a rumble under the highway - whoever wins gains control of the streets. Maria sends Tony to stop it, hoping it can end the violence. It goes terribly wrong, and before the lovers know what has happened, tragedy strikes and doesn't stop until the climactic and heartbreaking ending.

My Review:

The music libretto of Bernstein and Sondheim was one of the finest ever created, with songs like Tonight, Maria, I Feel Pretty, and Somewhere becoming classics. I’m always overwhelmed whenever I watch this movie. Beside this is one of those moments when I’m glad my name is Maria, for I have never heard anyone saying, much less singing, my name as romantic and full of love as Tony did in the movie.

Swoon!

Trivia:

Natalie Wood's singing was dubbed by Marni Nixon, and she was extemely disappointed about it. She thought she was not the best singer that time, but she was good enough to do the singing herself. The producers thought otherwise.

Robert Wise's original choice to play Tony was Elvis Presley.

Audrey Hepburn was offered the role of Maria, but she turned it down, because she was pregnant with Sean H. Ferrer at the time.

Throughout the movie, Natalie Wood wears a bracelet on her left wrist, not for any aesthetic reason, but because she had injured her wrist on in the scene of The Green Promise (1949) when she fell on the bridge that collapsed during the severe rainstorm, causing an unsightly bone protrusion on her wrist. She wore the bracelet to hide the injury. It became her trademark in all of her movies.

When filming "The Taunting Scene", Rita Moreno was reduced to tears when she was harassed and nearly raped by the Jets, as it brought back memories of when she was raped as a child. When she started crying, the Jets immediately stopped what they were doing and tried to comfort her, while pointing out that the audience was going to hate them for what they were doing.

Sorry, favorite songs overload!

Tonight, tonight there's only you tonight...