West Side Story (film) Brittany Snow and Drake Bell. West Side Story (film) West Side Story is a 1961 American romantic musical tragedy film directed by Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins. The film is an adaptation of the 1957 Broadway musical of the same name, which in turn was inspired by William Shakespeare's play "Romeo and Juliet". It stars Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Russ Tamblyn, Rita Moreno, and George Chakiris, and was photographed by Daniel L. Fapp, A.S.C., in Super Panavision 70. Released on October 18, 1961, through United Artists, the film received high praise from critics and viewers, and became the second highest
Gypsy (1962 film) Story" is, though, it is equaled and, arguably, surpassed - in a rather different idiom - by another filmed Broadway hit: Mervyn LeRoy’s "Gypsy". Arthur Laurents' book (for) "West Side Story" (adapted for the screen by Ernest Lehman), though largely craftsmanlike, falls short of his libretto for "Gypsy" (scripted on celluloid by Leonard Spigelgass), based on the memoirs of the transatlantic stripper Gypsy Rose Lee. The dialogue and situations in "Gypsy" have more wit, bite and emotional range, and the characterizations are more complex. "Variety" noted, "There is a wonderfully funny sequence involving three nails-hard strippers which comes when "Gypsy"