"West Side Story" blu-ray Street Date:October 17th

Saul Bass is spinning in his grave so fast he could put the Jets and the Sharks to shame.

Eeewwwww.  That is truly ugly.

That cover art is hardly a masterpiece, but I'm having a hard time understanding why everyone seems to hate it so much. It retains the original logo and just rearranges the original design a bit.  I, too, generally prefer the studios just use the original art more-or-less as-is, but considering some of the other abominations out there, this doesn't look half bad to me.

It's not that bad. At least it isn't plastered with faces. It retains the abstract look of the play and film.

The main problem I have with this cover is not that it's ugly, but rather that it takes a famous image by a renowned artist (Saul Bass) and shuffles it around. I wouldn't even care if the original poster weren't so well-known. If the studio wants to do something completely unique, fine. If it wants to use Mr. Bass's art/image as it was or very close, fine. It just seems wrong and disrespectful to change it around like that since the original has become a near-trademark. If Mr. Bass had wanted those silhouettes to be dancing on skyscrapers, I imagine he'd have done it that way.

 

Here's an example I posted on another thread that I think stays with the spirit of the original design (meaning not changed), but does something different and cool:

 

The skyline is cheesy and doesn't work and the red is off, plus it works better with black rather than white against red.  They should have just stuck with the same cover of the Special Collectors Edition dvd. 

 

 

But maybe R1 will be better. 

In this case, I just hope that the film itself is spectacular on blu ray.

According to an article I just read, the Collector's Edition for West Side Story comes out Novermber 15th. Here's the illustration for the collector's edition spread. Sorry the picture is so small.

 

 

^ That artwork works for me.

From what little I've seen and heard of my copy of the bluray so far, I'm rather pleased with it!

Sound in 5.1 seems beefy - no idea how it sounds in 7.1 until I get a couple more speakers.

Image seems very attractive and absorbing. Lots of 70mm fine detail, but different to today's every follicle, pock-mark and pore camera images. A great sense of it being restored to a former glory, and far crisper than the soft dvd transfer of a few years ago. The dancing in particular seems more involving due to finer detail of movement.

Sound seems very interesting, too. Lots of lovely fine detailing I seem to be hearing for the first time.

Just a snap shot view, of course.

The whole point about Saul Bass's original artwork is that the three words -
West
Side
Story
- were on different levels, representing a tenement block, linked by the fire escape which was a key setting in the film. The new artwork totally shuns this concept and doesn't replace it with anything interesting. Like the recent Ben-Hur artwork, this is new for the sake of new, created by people who have probably never heard of West Side Story, let alone the genius who was Saul Bass.

I haven't got my copy yet - but oddly enough I'm most looking forward to seeing and hearing the multi-colored prologue and that heart-stopping moment when the screen shifts perspective and we get the main title at the bottom. The best part of a great movie!

I've always remembered how, at my first viewing, it was such a wonderful surprise when that seemingly random pattern of vertical lines became the NYC skyline.  (It would be several years before I got into Hitchcock and saw North by Northwest.)

 

And then the end credits?     Best.  Ever.

 

Is the song TONIGHT back in sync ?

Is there an optional Entr'Acte on this version? And, I too want to know if Tonight is in sync.

entracte, yes.. which runs nicely into the following song

tonight in sync? not sure.. not looked at the offending previous dvd to see how out of synch that one got.. nothing drastic on the blu, but I dont know how it compares.

Robert Wise has always said that this movie was intended to run without an intermission, hence no need for an entr'acte.

The sync was off noticeably on the dvd and wasn't corrected. I have an auto corrector on the blu ray player so I had to use that for the sync during this song. It was probably never perfect though, since Nixon actually sang the song.

On the dvd the out- of -sync was terrible. Haven't seen the blu yet and purchase of the blu will depend on what everyone says...

His movements were way off too, especially when he spoke "Oh, Maria. See only me."

Im not sure what is happening here. I go to Amazon and dealers all over the net who say ALL blu rays of West side story are due out onNov. 15.

I call local dealers and they tell me the same thing.
How are guys getting the blu rays early.

The US release date is 11/15. The UK release date (as noted in this thread's title) was today (10/17). I'm guessing Tom Walker, who is reporting he has the disc, either lives in the UK or imported it from Amazon.co.uk or another online dealer.
 

 

Indeed, London calling, from my side.

And I pre-ordered the movie via Amazon UK, so its arrival was a bit out of the blue yesterday, as I hadn't checked my dates.

As to the placement of the Intermission, I think it works fine - between Tony's solitude after rumble is planned, to an nice entracte of "I feel pretty" leading straight into the dressing shop scene.

btw the UK disc would seem to be region free - the ABC hexagons on the disc.

Dear kindly Sergeant Krupke
You gotta understand
It's just our bringin' upke
That gets us out of hand
Our mothers all are junkies
Our fathers all are drunks
Golly Moses, naturally we're punks!

 

 

Picked up the blu-ray yesterday from my local HMV, £15 2 discs. Excellent musical. I'll watch it at the weekend.

I would certainly hope so, given the amount of work put into restoring the original 6-track audio; see http://www.in70mm.com/news/2010/wss/index.htm.