WEST SIDE STORY ON STAGE pop quiz What do Leonard Bernstein, Chita Rivera and Ken Le Roy have in common with Karl Marx, Fidel Castro and Josef Stalin? Correct: They all have prominently appeared on covers of magazines that feature articles of interest to the fans of the masterwork. This glorious issue of what we can safely call the pre-eminent American picture magazine of its day is truly the crowning achievement of the dedicated editors and photographers--anonymous but most sincerely appreciated--whose treasured work we are re-visiting on this site. The nine-page spread--which is typically light on text and abbreviated captioning and heavy on photos (which themselves enjoy a range of light-to-heavy as demonstrated by some samples shown below) introduces itself with the bold pronouncement: "Most adventurous movie ever made." In one man's opinion, that boastful observation is true well into the twenty-first century. Subsequent musicals have come to us with the benefit of more sophisticated cimena technique, less difficult topics, more integrity in casting and dubbing issues, and, heaven knows, happier endings. Adventurous? Unique? Impossible to confuse with some other musical it resembles? One film stands alone in this evalution, and undoubtedly always will.
