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
Robert Wagner a company of Darryl F. Zanuck's brother in law (the leads were all under contract to Fox) and released through United Artists. Back at Fox he was "Between Heaven and Hell" (1956), a war movie, and "The True Story of Jesse James" (1957), playing the lead role for director Nicholas Ray (Jeffrey Hunter was Frank). Both movies were box office disappointments and it seemed Wagner was unable to make the transition to top level star. This appeared confirmed when he was the lead in "Stopover Tokyo" (1957). In 1959, Wagner disparaged the film: When I started at Fox in 1950