Popular Culture Review Vol. 11, No. 1, February 2000 | Page 127

West Side Story and Kennedy’s Camelot

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did not suffer from what David Cook calls the “elephantiasis” which characterized
the more upbeat musical blockbusters of the 1960s.15 Moreover, the next musical
for noir veteran producer-director Robert Wise after West Side Story was the
decidedly upbeat, non -noir, extravagantly-budgeted The Sound o f Music (shot on
location in Salzburg, Austria instead of the claustrophobic noir confines of a studio)
which made $72 million dollars in North American rentals in 1965 (Finler, 277).
This is significant. Was it a precedent for the direction of Hollywood musicals?
Considering its immense success, probably. The industry nickname for the film
was “The Sound of Money.” Wise’s escapist 1965 musical was so profitable it
made more money than any film until Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather in
1972.16 This tremendous success clearly marked an influential industry precedent
spurring the future trend of comparatively upbeat musical films. West Side Story,
though heralded as a breakthrough in ushering in a new trend towards the treatment
of serious topics in musicals, was neither the first, nor the only noir ’musical. It
was, however, a blockbuster, the most successful dark musical film ever—all the
more reason to potentially influence dark thematics and set a big-budget precedent
impacting future film musicals. Yet, earlier serious musical films had not been as
successful as musical comedies; neither was the original Broadway play a blockbuster
on the New York stage in 1957. But the film West Side Story enjoyed phenomenal
popularity by the early 1960s in the cultural glow of the “Camelot” era.
West Side Story's 1961 critical and box-office success was achieved in part by
invoking teen exploitation and juvenile delinquency films—which were censored—
to target an expanding youth market. Its lavish, big-budget 70mm roadshow
exhibition and adaptation from the Broadway stage lent a pre-sold air of theatrical
prestige gaining critical pedigree, and drawing older audiences. While its narrative
racial tensions and youth-oriented rival street gang violence tapped a young,
ethnically diverse audience, the film also appealed to adults due to its efforts at
grandeur—capturing the romance, spectacle, music and dynamic dance of classical
musicals. As adapted from Robbins’ 1957-1959 Broadway stage production, the
Wise-Robbins 1960-1961 Hollywood musical film collaboration capitalizes on
teen/social problem films, gangster films and film noir style to target a lucrative
postwar baby boom demographic. West Side Story successfully tackled serious
issues—in a postwar era embracing “realism