Lee Theodore, who played Anybodys in the original Broadway production, served as an assistant choreographer for the film. Russ Tamblyn reports that he and most of the rest of the dancers in the film suffered from shin splints at one time or another, the result of extended dancing on pavement as opposed to a wooden stage or soundstage floor.
A major controversy developed because Carol Lawrence, who played Maria in the stage version, was passed over for the role in favor of Natalie Wood.
Along with all the other songs that were re-written for the movie perhaps one of the songs that was most worked over was "The Rumble Song" (Sometimes known simply as Quintet). Due to the outcome of the war council the best man from each gang will fight it out fairly. The duel in the stage show is initially meant to be fought between Bernardo and Diesel. Diesel didn't appear in this so the duel is between Ice and Bernardo. Also there is a part when Riff is talking Tony into arriving at the Rumble (I'm counting on you to be there tonight/When Diesel wins it fair and square tonight) which changed (We'll be a-backing you boy/You're gonna flatten him good) due to the change of the fighters.
Although the producers tried to keep the different gangs separate during filming to create tension, Russ Tamblyn (Riff) said that he knew of at least one "Jet" who was roommates with a "Shark" through filming.
At the time, this became the biggest selling soundtrack album.
Borrowed its plot from William Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet".
Director Robert Wise hired New York gang members to control crowds on location, and fought to shoot on location in New York City.
During the entire production, the actors wore out 200 pairs of shoes, applied more than 100lbs of make-up, split 27 pairs of pants and performed in 30 different recording sessions.
Even though dubbing Natalie Wood was Marni Nixon's chief assignment, Nixon also did one number for Rita Moreno, which required a relatively high vocal register. Having dubbed Wood as well as Moreno, Nixon felt she deserved a cut of the movie-album royalties. Neither the movie or the record producers would bow to her demands. Leonard Bernstein broke the stalemate by volunteering a percentage of his income, a gesture of loyalty-royalty since Nixon had been a performer-colleague of his at New York Philharmonic concerts. He ceded one-quarter of one percent of his royalties to her (a generous amount).
Film rights to the play were bought for $375,000.
Filmed on-location on West 61st Street.
In 1962, the Columbia Records soundtrack release commanded the number-one spot on the "Billboard" popular albums chart from May 5 through June 16, and again from October 6 through October 13.
In 1998, the American Film Institute ranked this as the #41 Greatest Movie of All Time. It fell to #51 in the updated list released in 2007.
In 2010, Stephen Sondheim (who wrote the lyrics) told "Fresh Air" interviewer Terry Gross that while he was writing the stage musical, he originally wanted the show to be the first one in Broadway history to use the words "fuck" and "shit" in its song lyrics. He wanted the end of the song "Gee, Officer Krupke" to be "Gee, Officer Krupke/Fuck you!" (instead of what it became, which is "Gee, Officer Krupke/Krup you!"), and he wanted the lyrics in "The Jets Song" to be "When you're a Jet/If the shit hits the fan" instead of "When you're a Jet/If the spit hits the fan". However, the show's writers were informed that if the Original Cast Album contained those profanities, it would have been illegal to ship the record across state lines. So Sondheim made the substitutions for those words that appear in both the stage show and the movie.
In a few scenes, a poster can be seen for Palisades Park, which was a real amusement park which operated in Cliffside Park (or Fort Lee), New Jersey from 1898 to 1971.
In the scene on the roof before the musical number "America", when the girls are mocking Bernardo's speech, one of the girls say ,"We came with our hearts open", one of the Sharks says, "You came with your pants open!" This line had to be changed to "You came with your mouth open," for the movie because of censorship standards.
Many shots imitate the work of modern American painters of New York City, especially the work of Ben Shahn and Robert Vickery.
Most of the original Broadway cast were rejected for the film as either photographing too old or actually being too old for the teenaged characters. Since Hollywood was accustomed to dubbing the singing voices of many stars, dozens of non-singing actors and actresses were tested or considered for the leading roles. Among them: Suzanne Pleshette, Jill St. John, Audrey Hepburn, Anna Maria Alberghetti, Elizabeth Ashley, Anthony Perkins, Warren Beatty, Bobby Darin, Burt Reynolds, Richard Chamberlain, Troy Donahue and Gary Lockwood.
Opening dance sequences were shot on the upper west side of Manhattan where Lincoln Center stands today. This area was condemned and the buildings were in the process of being demolished to make way for Lincoln Center. The demolition of these buildings was delayed so that the filming of these sequences could be completed.
Original plans for the play to involve a Jewish boy and an Irish Catholic girl were abandoned because producer Arthur Laurents felt it too closely mirrored the play "Abie's Irish Rose".