Maria's white dress is not only evocative of anxieties about preserving a chaste femininity, but it also contrib- utes to the film's project of assuaging bourgeois anxiety surrounding miscege- nation.
Riff is the leader and co-founder of the Jets. His character is based on Mercutio from Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet, and like Mercutio in Shakespeare's play, is the first one to die in West Side Story.
But Fitzgerald's direction is guided by the belief that love can overcome and conquer hate. "Love has no boundaries. Doesn't matter whether you're gay, straight, white, black, love has no blinders on. Love has no hate."
Baby John, a blonde, shy, and peaceful member of the Jets, is perhaps the most important site of a white Jewish gay subjectivity.
Big Deal is a Jet played by Anthony 'Scooter" Teague. Big Deal's name is two common words, both of which mean a thing considered important.
Keegan Chitwood and Emma Badger play star-crossed lovers Tony and Maria in "West Side Story."
Anita arrives and asks to speak to Doc. The Jets, recognizing her as Bernardo's girl and thinking that she is there to betray Tony to Chino, won't let her go down to the basement to talk to Doc. Instead, they harass and attack her.
Jets
- Tucker Smith as Ice (a character created for the film), Riff's lieutenant; becomes leader of the Jets after Riff's death.
- Tony Mordente as Action, a short-tempered Jet.
- David Winters as A-Rab, Baby John's best friend.
- Eliot Feld as Baby John, the youngest member of the Jets; a relative innocent.
Riff (a Jet) plans to challenge Bernardo (a Shark) to a rumble at a community dance that evening. Riff convinces the hesitant Tony to come to the dance with the rest of the Jets.
The Sharks begin taunting Tony, and Riff attacks Bernardo in Tony's defense. Bernardo stabs Riff to death, and Tony then grabs Riff's knife and kills Bernardo.
In its final form, West Side Story rode upon the human wave fleeing poverty in Puerto Rico after World War II. For starters, only one of the actors in the original Broadway productions – Rita Moreno – was actually Puerto Rican. The rest of the Puerto Rican characters were played by white actors.
Bernardo is a Puerto Rican migrant and founder/leader of the Sharks, a Hispanic street gang who are in the midst of a turf war with their archenemies, the Jets. He is the older brother of Maria and is Anita's boyfriend.
Anita tells Maria that Chino has a gun and is looking for Tony. Schrank arrives and detains Maria for questioning. Maria covertly asks Anita to go to Doc's and tell Tony that she has been delayed.
Anita realizes that Tony has been with Maria and turns on Maria in fury for making love to the boy who killed her brother (“A Boy Like Thatâ€). However, when Maria explains (“I Have a Loveâ€), Anita realizes that Maria loves Tony as much as she loved Bernardo.
The Sharks arrive to discuss weapons to use in the rumble. Tony suggests "a fair fight" (fists only), which the leaders agree to, despite the other members' protests.
Bernstein and Robbins, drawing on their backgrounds as Russian-American Jews, set the conflict on the Lower East Side, between Jewish and Irish-Catholic gangs — a real-life rivalry that did lead to bloody turf wars in the early 1900s.
Had 2020 gone as originally planned, the remake of West Side Story directed by Steven Spielberg would have been hitting theaters in just a few weeks. Among many other problems, legendary director and choreographer Jerome Robbins was fired from directing the film after his reputation as a taskmaster proved overbearing.
Equally bold is the inclusion of the character named Anybodys, a teenage girl who identifies as a male and longs to be accepted as a full member of the Jets. Anybodys is Broadway's first transgender youth.
Who is Anybody's? Why does she have this name? How does the gang feel about her? She is someone who wants to belong to the Jets, but they don't want girls in their group and they think she's annoying.
Very little of the singing in the finished film and on the soundtrack album was contributed by the on-screen stars of the film; while George Chakiris did all of his own singing for the few solo lines of his character Bernardo, Jim Bryant entirely dubbed the singing role of Tony for Richard Beymer, and Rita Moreno's
MARIA-†A hopeless romantic and innocent young girl. She falls in love with Tony and finds herself at the center of the violent conflict between the two gangs.
Maria: Lovely young and obedient immigrant Puerto Rican girl, excited and enthusiastic about her new life in America, but with stubborn inner strength that allows her to evolve into a strong woman; soprano.
West Side Story was originally set in the neighborhood of Lincoln Square, or San Juan Hill, on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Until the 1950s, the neighborhood was predominantly African-American and Afro-Caribbean. Though it suffered from poverty and crime, it was also a cultural hotspot, especially for music.
In a sudden fit of vengeful rage, Tony grabs Riff's blade and stabs Bernardo in the stomach killing him. A free-for-all breaks out among both gangs until sirens blare, and the Jets and Sharks both scatter leaving Tony and the dead bodies of Riff and Bernardo behind.
