Continuity mistake: When Maria is hitting Tony while saying "Killer," her hair is across her left cheek. In the next shot, it is completely away from her face. (01:48:20)
West Side Story (1961)
Ending / spoiler
Directed by: Robert Wise, Jerome Robbins
Starring: Natalie Wood, Russ Tamblyn, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris
After being falsely told that Maria has been killed by Chino, a distraught Tony wanders the streets, yelling for Chino to come kill him too. He discovers she is not dead when he sees her from across the playground, coming to meet him. Forgetting his sorrow, he runs towards her, and she towards him, but Chino heard Tony's screaming for him, and arrives at the same moment, shooting and killing Tony. Tony dies in Maria's arms. Maria, now a widow, declares that all the Sharks and the Jets are both responsible for all the deaths because of their hate. The Jets and Sharks at least temporarily put their feud behind them and carry Tony's body off together. Chino is escorted to a police car.
MovieSal
More mistakes in West Side StoryMore quotes from West Side Story
Trivia: Rita Mareno was unable to hit the low notes in the song "A Boy Like That"; the entire song had to be dubbed. Natalie Wood was not told that all of her songs were going to be dubbed until after filming was completed; she went through the production thinking it would be her voice used in the songs when the film was released. Dubbing the songs after filming was completed posed an unusual problem. Normally when a song is dubbed, they play it during filming so that the actors can mouth the words so that they match the lyrics. The songs in West Side Story were dubbed after filming was completed, so it was the singers who were brought in that had to match their lyrics to the actors mouthing the words (from the documentary "West Side Memories", 2009).
Question: In the original musical of West Side Story, the song "Officer Krupke" is sung some time after the rumble when Riff was killed. Why was it changed to before the rumble?
Join the mailing list
Separate from membership, this is to get updates about mistakes in recent releases. Addresses are not passed on to any third party, and are used solely for direct communication from this site. You can unsubscribe at any time.
Check out the mistake & trivia books, on Kindle and in paperback.
Answer: Actually there were a number of changes made in the movie adaptation compared to the original stage version. There were cuts, new additions, and changes to music, lyrics, dialogue, and characters. A few of the musical numbers were switched around because it was felt the storyline flowed better on screen, for different reasons. Some examples are "Gee, Officer Krupke" and "I Feel Pretty" which are cheerful, light-hearted songs and were moved to before "The Rumble", and "Cool" was moved to after "The Rumble" which gives that song's lyrics gravitas.
Super Grover ★