Riff and Tony repeat an oath of loyalty to each other: Riff says "womb to tomb" and Tony answers "birth to earth." On stage Tony's original answer was "sperm to worm," but this was changed for the movie because it was beyond the censorship standards of the time.
Shooting in 65mm was prohibitively expensive. After their experiences making this film - and especially Jerome Robbins' extensive reshooting - the Mirisch brothers refused to make any more films in the format.
Shooting lasted for 6 months, sound mixing and editing for 7.
Six members of the original Broadway cast appeared in the movie: Carole D'Andrea (Velma), David Winters (movie: A-Rab, Broadway: Baby John), Jay Norman (movie: Pepe, Broadway: Juano), Tommy Abbott (Gee-Tar), Tony Mordente (movie: Action, Broadway: A-Rab), William Bramley (Officer Krupke).
The "America" sequence on stage was conceived as a duet between Anita and Rosalia. For the film, it was altered to be one between Anita and Bernardo.
The actors in the rival gangs were instructed to play pranks on each other off the set to keep tensions high.
The Al Wood posters are in reference to Allen K. Wood, who was one of the production designers.
The boys' jeans were dyed, re-dyed and "distressed," using special elastic thread to allow for the severity of the choreography.
The film ran in Paris for a grand total of 249 weeks, making it the longest running film in French history.
The interior sets were built six feet off the ground to allow for low-angle shooting with large 70mm cameras.
The lyrics to "America" were substantially changed for the movie. There had been complaints that the Broadway version was too belittling to Puerto Ricans, in that the song mainly ridiculed Puerto Rico and Puerto Ricans. The movie lyrics emphasize the racism and discrimination that Puerto Ricans were subjected to in America.
The original Broadway production of "West Side Story" opened at the Winter Garden Theater on September 26, 1957, ran for 732 performances and was nominated for the 1958 Tony Award for the Best Musical.
The original stage version of Maria's song "I Feel Pretty" included the lyrics "I feel pretty and witty and bright / And I pity / Any girl who isn't me tonight." In the film this night scene was changed to the daytime, and presumably for this reason, the rhyming words "bright" and "tonight" were changed to "gay" and "today."
The second highest grossing film of 1961, coming in just behind One Hundred and One Dalmatians.
The ship seen in the opening aerial view of the city is the SS United States of the United States Lines. It first sailed in 1952 and was laid up in the late 1960's and has been idle ever since. It was recently bought by NCL to be refurbished as a cruise ship. The SS United States currently sits rusting away at a pier on the Delaware River in Philadelphia. PA.
The song "Gee Officer Krupke" was banned by the BBC because of its mentions of drug use and sexual ambiguity.
The song "One Hand, One Heart" was written for the earlier musical "Candide," but later discarded by Leonard Bernstein and revived for "West Side Story."
The songs "I Feel Pretty", "Gee Officer Krupke" and "Cool" were moved for the movie. The first two originally followed the Rumble, and "Cool" was performed outside Doc's Candy Store. It was felt that the message of "Cool" was more appropriate for how the Jets would handle being approached by the police. The light tone of "I Feel Pretty" was felt wrong for the mood of the piece after the Rumble, so it was moved to the start of the second act.
The stage lyrics for the song "Gee, Officer Krupke" are "My father is a bastard, my ma's an s.o.b. My grandpa's always plastered..." The lyrics had to be changed for the movie to: "My daddy beats my mommy, my mommy clobbers me, my grandpa is a commie..." Also, the stage lyric was, "Dear kindly social worker, they say go earn a buck, like be a soda jerker, which means like be a schmuck." For the film, the lines were changed to "Dear kindly social worker, they say go get a job, like be a soda jerker, which means I'd be a slob."
The stage version was originally planned as a story about a Catholic boy falling in love with a Jewish girl. The working title was "East Side Story". After a boom of Puerto Rican immigration to New York in the late 1940s and 1950s, the story was changed, and the show opened on Broadway in 1957 as "West Side Story".