MovieChat Forums > West Side Story (1961) Discussion > Movie Soundtrack - The Finale

Movie Soundtrack - The Finale

posted 2 years ago by StrongRex (1288)
5 replies | jump to latest

Does anyone else find it distracting how sloppily edited the Finale piece is on the soundtrack? They don’t even include the whole exchange between Tony and Maria as Tony is dying (Tony begins speaking mid-sentence a few sentences in), and as soon as he does die we hear Maria wailing right after and it ends up being unintentionally hilarious. We don’t hear any music at all until after that happens.

If they would’ve just included the whole thing it would’ve been an extra minute-and-a-half to two minutes at the most, and it would’ve been much more powerful.

[–] mplo (2305) 2 years ago

That is rather distracting. A lot of the time, when soundtracks of movies are made, the finale does get messed up in some way or other. It's not excusable, but people aren't always very careful or observant, if one gets the drift.

[–] StrongRex (1288) 2 years ago

I do love the movie soundtrack otherwise. My only other complaint with it is the Prologue sequence, and that’s also where some of the music is missing. It’s not as noticeable, and I do understand that this number is pretty long in the movie, so I get why they may have cut some of the music out. Still though, West Side Story’s music as a whole is very iconic and you just want to be careful when you mess with it in any way in my opinion.

[–] mplo (2305) 2 years ago

Hi again, StrongRex! You've made some great, good points that are well taken. West Side Story, as a film, really is way too special, too iconic, and too beautiful to be meddled with in anyway. That's a big, big reason why I was always so against anybody rebooting and/or remaking this great golden oldie-but-keeper of a classic movie musical. Thank you for your post. I, too, am one of the naysayers at the idea of this great classic movie-musical being messed around with in any way or form whatsoever.

[–] StrongRex (1288) 2 years ago

The only change to the music I can think of that I approved of was lowering Tony’s range in the movie. It sounded way better and way more masculine.

That, and also reworking America for the movie. The original version was so abysmal it wasn’t even funny.

[–] mplo (2305) 2 years ago

Again, you made some very good points, StrongRex. Tony's voice was dubbed by Jimmy Bryant, however. It was good that the voice was lowered to make it sound more masculine. I also liked the way that the Sharks themselves were added to the "America" in the original 1961 film version of West Side Story. Adding the guys to that scene really brought the "America" scene to the heavens!