West Side Story

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General		Extras
Category	Musical	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - 2.35:1, non 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1961	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	145:35 minutes (not 192 minutes as on packaging)	Other Extras	Booklet
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (77:46)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Selection then Menu
Region	2,4	Director	Robert Wise Jerome Robbins
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Natalie Wood  Richard Beymer Russ Tamblyn  Rita Moreno George Chakiris
Case	Amaray
RRP	$34.95	Music	Leonard Bernstein Stephen Sondheim

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	No	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	2.35:1	Dolby Digital	5.1
16 x 9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 5.1, 448 Kb/s) German (Dolby Digital 2.0, 192 Kb/s) French (Dolby Digital 2.0, 192 Kb/s) Italian (Dolby Digital 2.0, 192 Kb/s) Spanish (Dolby Digital 2.0, 192 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	2.20:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	?	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired German French Spanish Dutch Portuguese Swedish Norwegian Finnish Polish	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    When you look at the awards listing for this film, it appears to be a film of some stature. Ten Oscars - Best Art Direction, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Director, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Best Picture, Best Sound, Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress. Three Golden Globes - Best Picture (Musical), Best Supporting Actor and Best Supporting Actress. One Grammy - Best Sound Track Album. Whilst my humble opinion counts for not an awful lot, I can only presume that 1961 was a poor year for film if this could walk away with all these awards, especially the Best Picture. Perhaps in the sixties, when the musical was the apparently pre-eminent genre of film, it made more sense, but looking at the film now I find it to be nothing more than a poor example of the ultra-cool sixties stylism that has not suffered at all well at the hands of time. It is quite a pretentious film, with material that does not really have the character to sustain a 145 minute length, and the film in general, and the song lyrics in particular, venture very close to outright racism at times. To say that I find this to be an unpalatable pile of animal dung is to severely understate the case. Perhaps I have simply completely missed the point to the film.

    Without being too cynical (well, okay, being really cynical), this is a musical therefore it does not have much of a plot. This is the story of the streets of the west side of Manhattan (surprise, surprise), where the gangs rule. In this effort, we have the White American Jets opposed to the Puerto Rican Sharks, as a backdrop to the modern day Romeo and Juliet story of Tony (Richard Beymer) and Maria (Natalie Wood), two young people struggling to get together despite their cultural backgrounds and the backgrounds of the neighbourhood in which they live. The whole plot is really just an irrelevant backdrop to an excuse for two hours plus of singing and dancing that has little relevance to the story (which naturally contrasts enormously with a film like My Fair Lady, where the musical element of the film is completely relevant to the story).

    I found the story to be excruciatingly contrived and the contextual use of song and dance without merit. From a performance point of view, at least there is merit here. Whilst I find the casting of the epitome of the American girl-next-door as a Puerto Rican just a tad odd, Natalie Wood certainly was convincing enough as the naive young women finding her way in the new world, if you can overlook the rather poor accent. Richard Beymer was far more convincing as the young white American lover. The performance of the wonderfully talented Rita Moreno is far more convincing, whilst this is a wildly different George Chakiris from that in 633 Squadron, albeit not entirely convincing as the young Puerto Rican hoodlum. The rest of the cast were an indelible blank to me, but perhaps by the time I really got to notice them, I was already asleep. The direction here was reasonably decent but really I felt that any director worth his salt would have argued for the severe cutting back of some of the unnecessarily extended exposition scenes here. One simply cannot argue too much about the cinematography here though, and it certainly captures well what the director was wishing us to see.

    Overall, definitely not a film to suit my tastes and definitely a film in my view that is far too entrenched in a period that is not best remembered.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced. The original theatrical release was at a ratio of 2.20:1 so it would appear that we have a slightly cropped transfer on offer. However, since the film was shot in SuperPanavision 70, little essential image is liable to have been lost.

    In much the same way that My Fair Lady was given a superlative restoration, so this has been similarly blessed. Although there are some odd lapses, aside from those intended by the director, this is a very nicely sharp transfer and quite detailed transfer that is about as good as you can possibly get with a film that is after all 39 years old. The definition here is quite decent and the transfer is in general very clear. There are no problems with low level noise in the transfer, and this is overall a very fine transfer indeed.

    The film has always been noted for its wonderful colours, and they come up quite beautifully here. Not especially vibrant, but still a very nice palette that should satisfy the film's aficionados. There was the slightest hint of oversaturation in some scenes, but these may be a result of the director's intention in the original film.

    There were no MPEG artefacts noted in the transfer. There does appear to be a slight inherent fault in the original film during the bridge flyover sequence. There is a consistent problem with film-to-video artefacts in the transfer, in the form of noticeable aliasing especially early in the film; I found it distracting and annoying, but that is probably a reflection of my disdain for the film, so others will find it quite minor. Sure there were film artefacts present in abundance, but nothing that would be remotely considered distracting to the film.

    This is an RSDL format disc, with the layer change coming at 77:46. The layer change is well placed in a fade to black scene change and is completely non-disruptive to the film. The transfer is again from a French master.

Audio

    There are five audio tracks on the DVD: an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack, a German Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack, a French Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack, an Italian Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack and a Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 mono soundtrack. I listened to the English default. The packaging states the French soundtrack to be Dolby Digital 5.1, but it is not.

    Dialogue was always clear and easy to understand.

    There were no apparent audio sync problems with the disc.

    The score by Leonard Bernstein is justly famous and possibly the finest music he ever composed. The lyrics come from Stephen Sondheim and at times they now sound very dated, but some of the songs are justifiably considered icons of the musical genre.

    This is a nicely detailed soundtrack, although not providing a huge amount of use for the bass channel. Some of the detail in the surround channels, especially the rear channel, is quite sublime and this has to be considered a wonderful remastering of a classic film score. Perhaps the soundtrack could have had just a tad more space in it, as at times the lyrics seemed to be just a little congested, but that is a minor quibble. I seriously doubt that his has ever sounded as good as it does here, and in many respects it is a disappointment that we have not got a music-only soundtrack on offer, as I would love to do a comparison with Bernstein's own studio recording of the score.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer (3:58)

Booklet

    A very nice video transfer for a film of this age.

    A very good audio transfer.

    A minimal extras package.

    I suppose it should be noted that every release in this batch from MGM has been inaccurate regarding the running time of the feature - mainly because someone forgot to do the 4% reduction in time due to the speed up of the PAL transfer. However, this one is so far out it is not funny! 47 minutes is a fair whack to be out on your timing MGM. So then we add the error with labelling of the French soundtrack, compound it with the listing of a German for the Hearing Impaired subtitle track that is not present and finish off with that stupid phrase again (16:9 anamorphic stretch). Is it expecting too much to have some reasonably accurate covers to DVD releases?

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris
27th January 2000