Love and Romance Amid Urban Gang Warfare puts West Side Story in a class all by itself:

West Side Story is a very special musical, due to the fact that it has everything in it: Love, romance, urban gang warfare, and conflict with the law, as well as racial, ethnic and cultural tensions, and the arguments among the (newly-arrived) Puerto Rican Sharks and their girls over the immigrant experience, which gets rather heated, and somewhat playful at times.

If West Side Story were without any of the above-mentioned facets, it would not be a story, due to the fact that all of the events, ranging from the skirmishes between the Jets and Sharks on the playground, to the conflict with authority, Tony's backing away from the Jets in search of a new life, meeting and falling in love with the Shark Gang leader, Bernardo's sister, Maria at a dance at the local gym, to the Rumble, the stabbing deaths of Riff and Bernardo, the gunning down of Tony by an angry, jealous Chino, who was Bernardo's righthand man, Maria's angry message, and the hints of intergroup reconciliation in the end, all help make West Side Story the dynamic and powerful package that it is.

If the love and the romance between Tony and Maria, as short-lived as it was due to all the hatred and the feuding between the Jets and Sharks, plus Chino's anger and jealousy, were taken out, leaving only the urban gang warfare, there would be no real story behind West Side Story. It would be more like "The Outsiders", which, imho, seems to glorify gangsterism and gang violence.

If, on the other hand, the urban gang warfare over turf, race, culture and ethnicity between the white European Ethnic American Jets and the newly-arrived Puerto Rican Sharks, plus the conflict with the law, and the attempted counseling on the part of a concerned Doc, the Candy Store owner in the hopes of steering the Jets and Sharks in a better direction, as well as the Rumble and the Cool scene and the drug store scene, in which Anita is almost raped by the Jets, not to mention the Jet gang whistles, the dancing, and the finger-snapping were all taken out, there would be no real story to West Side Story, either. It would be rendered into a rather dull, uninteresting movie/musical not worth seeing.

Without the beautifully-choreographed dancing by the late Jerome Robbins, the richly-colored costumes and photography, the intensely brilliant musical score by Leonard Bernstein, and the special cinematography by Daniel Fapp, not to mention the great casting of Rita Moreno and George Chakiris, as Anita and Bernardo, the sardonic Shark gang leader, Simon Oakland as the bitter, bigoted and cynical Lt. Schrank, Tony Mordente as Action, the most hot-tempered and aggressive of the Jets, Russ Tamblyn as the tough but cocky, arrogant and exuberant Jet gang leader, Riff, and Tucker Smith, the handsome, calm, cool and collected Ice, who took over the Jet gang leadership after Riff's death at the Rumble, and Eliot Feld as Baby-John, who was the youngest and least mature of the Jets, Susan Oakes, who played Anybodys, the tomboy and Jets wannabe, as well as David Winters as A-Rab, who was sort of a weasel, and Baby-John's buddy, and the women who played the Jets' and Sharks' girlfriends, West Side Story would either not exist, or would just be a shell of what it is.

All of the cast was fitting, and, as I've mentioned before, West Side Story, as a great classic movie-musical, cries to be viewed on a great big, wide movie screen, in a real movie theatre, with the lights down low.

Without everything that went into West Side Story, this movie-musical would either be just a shadow, or non-existent. All of what went into West Side Story is what has provided it with a doubled-edged but great message.