West Side Story [1961] [Original Motion Picture Soundtrack]

Composer: Leonard Bernstein.Lyricist: Stephen Sondheim.Hollywood has a deservedly bad reputation for its adaptations of Broadway musicals, but, at least as of the mid-'50s, with Broadway powers like Rodgers & Hammerstein getting some control over the film versions of their works, some degree of greater fidelity has been achieved, in the sense that the movies tend to use much of the scores heard on-stage, without interpolating new, irrelevant material. One tendency Rodgers & Hammerstein pictures (notably South Pacific) have made heavy use of, however, is to have one cast acting on the screen and something close to an entirely different one singing in the recording studio, and that is very much the case with regard to West Side Story. Jerome Robbins, who directed the Broadway show, was co-director of the movie, so it's not surprising that there is some approximation on film of what was seen on-stage. But the story has been rearranged somewhat. Thankfully, the casting, including t