WEST SIDE STORY
TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
This Broadway musical, with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim, opened in 1957, updating Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet and transplanting it to the ethnic neighborhoods of New York City. It was a hit then, and is a hit now: tickets are now on sale for a new Broadway stage version, beginning previews in December. And there’s a new movie version, too, directed by Steven Spielberg, with a script by Tony Kushner and with input from Sondheim himself, due a year later, in December 2020. Meanwhile, here’s the fabulous 1961 film version, presented uninterrupted, in widescreen format, by TCM. Watch for Richard Beymer and Russ Tamblyn, two future stars of Twin Peaks. When they’re a Jet, they’re a Jet all the way…