A Piffany About West Side Story

Many folks consider West Side Story a musical theater masterpiece.

That, despite the 1961 Best Picture Oscar-winning film casting a daughter of Russian immigrants who didn’t sing (Natalie Wood, dubbed by Marni Nixon) to play the singing Puerto Rican immigrant, Maria, and darkened Rita Moreno’s skin.

Some, too, love the 2021 movie version, praising director Steven Spielberg for his adaptation of the source material, and including actual Spanish dialogue without subtitles. Even if he also cast a problematic bad boy, Ansel Engort, to play the musical’s star-crossed bad-boy lover, Tony.