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Miss Wood was commended "for so gallantly persisting in her career despite a total inability to act." The award for the worst duos of the year found her listed with 1. Warren Beatty 2. Richard Beymer (who won mention in his own right for his performance in West Side Story) 3. Anyone...
GARY: The show that everybody thought was doomed from the start has come through in fine form. West Side Story maintains all the pace, punch, and color of the Leonard Bernstein-Jerome Robbins Broadway original. Stars Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood...
West Side Story is a resetting of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in the race-riotous slums of Manhattan's Upper West Side. Romeo (Richard Beymer) is a white boy, idol of a teen tong called The Jets. Juliet (Natalie Wood) is a Puerto Rican girl whose brother (George Chakiris) is the leader of a rival street gang called The Sharks. As in Shakespeare's poem, the star-crossed lovers meet and love and find their fate in the ugly shadow of suspicion that divides their kindred. Unhappily, the literary parallel, though it lends the piece...
Nevertheless, by sheer theatrical intensity, the film transcends its specious materials. Under Robert Wise's driving direction, its set pieces are socko and incessant. Natalie Wood has the right dark glow as the Latin heroine; Richard Beymer is winsome as the hero, and as a tan teen Tybalt and a nubile Nurse of anything but the usual Shakespearance, George Chakiris and Rita Moreno are strikingly slummy. On-screen as onstage, Stephen Sondheim's lyrics sting like a tongueful of tamales. Leonard Bernstein's music, as usual spinelessly eclectic, fails (as the whole film fails) to merge...
Miss Wood as Maria, Richard Beymer as Tony, and Tamblyn as Riff are all surprisingly good. But the star of the movie is Rita Moreno, as Anita. Her performance in the duet "I Have a Love" with Maria is all by itself worth the rather steep price of admission...