Popular Culture Review Vol. 11, No. 1, February 2000 | Page 119

West Side Story and Kennedy’s Camelot

111

Bernstein was especially inspired by the potential to infuse jazz and Latin
American rhythms into his symphonic score. New York was the center of a
burgeoning Latin jazz scene from the 1940s through the 1960s. Bernstein
ingeniously adapted the classical Shubert house band at New York’s Winter Garden
Theatre by doing away with the violas to create an elaborate Latin American
percussion section (Burton, 270). Stephen Sondheim, friend and protege of Oscar
Hammerstein II, was hired as West Side Story's lyricist in October 1955. Bernstein
was initially West Side's lyricist and composer, but was busy juggling other projects
such as Candide. Sondheim was hired after auditioning for Bernstein and Laurents’
musical version of James M. Cain’s Serenade. Sondheim was young, hip ‘a la Park
Avenue, and wrote clever lyrics with a darker edge that would become more
prominent in his own later works. Librettist Laurents actually made up street slang
for the dialogue in West Side Story fearing contemporary phrases would become
outdated. Bernstein, harassed by HUAC while composing the score, collaborated
with Sondheim through winter 1956. Bernstein sought friend and senator Jack
Kennedy’s assistance to get HUAC off his back while scoring West Side Story; the
musical’s premiere was attended by Jackie Kennedy. Bernstein’s stunning music
and Robbins’ innovative dance made the show come alive on stage in 1957. Much
of the story and action were told through dance and music—rather than dialogue.
Its unhappy musical ending set a precedent on Broadway, and there was more
dancing than in any previous musical—accomplished by Robbins’ eight-week rather
than four-week rehearsal schedule. Yet, stage producer Hal Prince argued that West
Side Story's “monumental success” was due to its film adaptation and record profits,
rather than its original Broadway production (initially receiving only lukewarm
reviews). When they sold the screen rights, he explains, “nobody wanted it” (Prince
in Zadan, 28-29). As a testament to the stage version’s influence, however, according
to a September 12, 1960 production budget Mirisch paid $350,000 for the story
rights to film West Side Story—which Ernest Lehman adapted into a screenplay
produced by Robert Wise and co-directed by Wise and Robbins (Mirisch).
West Side Story's film adaptation showcased lavish aesthetics and technology:
filmed in 70mm large frame format using three-strip Technicolor (which had
increasingly been replaced by less expensive Eastman-Kodak “monopack” color
systems by this time), West Side Story's big-budget prestige adaptation was marketed
as a pre-sold commodity based on the play’s previous success, then released in
roadshow exhibition to emulate a theatrical stage event and reinforce musical
spectacle. Yet, the film also emulates conventional low-budget “B” film cycles
such as social-conscious juvenile delinquency films of contemporary urban youth,
using violence as in gangster crime films. Like gangster and B noir crime films,
this dark musical has an ensemble cast deviating from more “classical” musicals
in lacking a single major musical star— all key characters are youths, the majority