It is common for a hit Broadway show to be adapted into a movie that, though possibly competent and generally entertaining, lacks the punch of the live show. Not so with the 196_i. film version of West Side Story, which took a competent Broadway musical (1957) and turned it into a phenomenally popular movie. Set in contemporary New York City, the musical is a love story involving a Puerto Rican girl and an Anglo boy and the tensions their romance creates in their respective communities. Many consider it to be one of the greatest American film musicals of all time. The same creative talents worked on both the musical and the movie. Leonard Bernstein composed the music, Stephen Sondheim wrote the lyrics, and Jerome Robbins provided the choreography. The movie's stars, Richard Beymer and Natalie Wood, while adequate in their parts, did not even...