West Side Story: 50th Anniversary Edition Box Set [Blu-ray] [Limited Edition] (1961)

Description

Features:

• West Side Story: 50th Anniversary Edition Box Set [Blu-ray]

Format: Limited Edition

Details: Amazon.ca The winner of 10 Academy Awards, this 1961 musical by choreographer Jerome Robbins and director Robert Wise (The Sound of Music) remains irresistible. Based on a smash Broadway play updating Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to the 1950s era of juvenile delinquency, the film stars Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer as the star-crossed lovers from different neighborhoods–and ethnicities. The film’s real selling points, however, are the highly charged and inventive song-and-dance numbers, the passionate ballads, the moody sets, colorful support from Rita Moreno, and the sheer accomplishment of Hollywood talent and technology producing a film so stirring. Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim wrote the score. –Tom Keogh Product description Winner of 10 Academy Awards including Best Picture 1961 A triumph on every level, this magnificent achievement set a standard for modern movie musicals that remains unsurpassed to this day. Featuring an unforgettable score (Maria, America, Somewhere, Tonight) and groundbreaking choreography, the film sets the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet against the backdrop of gang warfare in 1950s New York. Starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, and George Chakiris. Special Features West Side Story, considered by many the greatest movie musical ever, is beautifully packaged in its collector’s edition set. The film itself has a new transfer and 5.1 sound mix (though the picture and 5.1 sound of the original DVD release were also excellent), and adds 90 seconds of intermission music, which is an instrumental version of « I Feel Pretty » before the film resumes with that song. The opening menu allows viewers to select whether they want to hear the intermission music (it’s not separately tracked). The second disc offers numerous features, such as storyboards, international advertising, and, of chief interest, a 56-minute 2003 documentary that interviews key contributors such as director-coproducer Robert Wise, playwright Arthur Laurents, and lyricist Stephen Sondheim (who says that even when the show was on stage he wanted « Gee, Officer Krupke » and « Cool » switched to the order they appear in the film). Most interesting are the discussions about the extensive dubbing. It’s common knowledge that Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer were dubbed (you can hear her original « I Feel Pretty, » which is adequate, and her part in the « Tonight » quintet, which is not), but Russ Tamblyn says that associate producer Saul Chaplin insisted on dubbing everyone, and Rita Moreno expresses her dissatisfaction with the character of her dubbed voice. The package is rounded out by a lovely and thick (if somewhat small-sized) booklet that reproduces the original screenplay and lobby brochure, supplemented by a new letter from screenwriter Ernest Lehman and other goodies. –David Horiuchi

UPC: 883904245216

EAN: 0883904245216

Languages: English

Binding: Blu-ray

Item Condition: New