DVD details for
West Side Story (1961) More at IMDbPro »

Michel Hafner (19 June 1999):
If you have had the privilege to see a 70 mm print of "West Side Story" in good shape you know how splendid this film looks. How sharp the images are and how gorgeous the colors, how the music and choreography sweep you away and the drama touches your heart. And you are painfully aware that there is no satisfying substitute for this 70 mm version. No 35 mm print will come close, no HDTV version will and lower resolution formats like DVD or laserdisc better not even try. Right? Well, I guess so.
DVD by its technical specifications has about 10 times less lines of resolution than a 70 mm show print, HDTV has 5 times less and 35 mm has half the resolution. In addition DVD and laserdisc lack the contrast range and color resolution of film. So how big a 'disappointment' is this DVD for spoilt people like me? The answer is, surprisingly, that the disappointment is minor.
Yes, there is no comparison concerning sharpness, but in all other aspects the DVD, while inferior, holds up well in comparison and delivers the goods. The film master used was in good shape. Some sequences are practically mint. Others suffer somewhat from speckles and dirt particles. It is never bad though, and for a film this age it is actually stunning how good the master looks. Better results would have required cost intensive digital paint jobs. The images are sometimes a bit less than rock steady (as in the opening overview shots of New York). Image sharpness is mostly very good and comes close to the best we have seen from films of the 90s. The use of 16:9 enhancement is crucial here. Films with aspect ratios above 2.00 : 1 desperately need every scanline they can get on DVD to provide an image that comes close to the theatrical experience, or at least does not look totally inadequate in comparison, or is riddled with artifacts. Even with 16:9 enhancement there remain problems with medium and wide shots filled with people and objects. They always lack definition. Highlights on people's faces and their teeth look unnatural and fuzzy, for example. This DVD is no exception here, but this is about as good as it gets with DVD.
Grain and noise level are low and never distracting. The transfer is so good that you can see the subtle image quality change when a scene with optical effects is coming up (optical effects require additional image generations which raise the noise level and reduce sharpness somewhat) (an example is the start of chapter 10). A couple of overview shots in chapter 10 seem to come from a lower quality master since image quality is clearly worse than in the rest of the film, by the way.
Color and contrast reproduction are first rate. There are video artifacts in the form of occasionally some aliasing (for example watch the police car in chapter 16: 2:38 ...) and some overenhanced edges (as in chapter 4: 2:26 ...). It is never distracting, though. I have not seen artifacts from digital noise removal. Finally compression by DVCC has been handled with a good eye for detail, it seems, since annoying artifacts are absent. There is some I-frame pulsing which is invisible under normal viewing conditions (example at start of chapter 9). A job well done.
So is the DVD as a whole. Without any doubt this is one of finest DVDs MGM has issued so far and especially one of the finest examples of a DVD version of a classic movie made several decades ago (unlike MGMs DVD of Gone with the Wind (1939), but that's another story). It can not replace the wonder of a 70 mm print, but in its own right it stands up very well, and is often outright spectacular and well capable of making your jaw of the 90s drop in awe for this movie of the 60s. And isn't this all we ultimately can expect and want from our home theatre, the impression that we had an authentic look at the film in question and got an idea of how it cast its magic spell back then, when it was playing on the big screen?
There are no supplements except for a trailer which looks as if it were mastered from a xth generation VHS tape: horrible. It serves as a reminder of how the whole DVD might have looked if one of the 'crap labels' had done it on a bad day. The trailer claims that "West Side Story", unlike other classics, grows younger. I agree.

A collection of 90 United Artists films spanning the studio's entire history. Disc 1: The Woman In The Window P&S Disc 2: Red River P&S Disc 3: The Barefoot Contessa P&S Disc 4: Marty P&S Disc 5: The Night of the Hunter WS Disc 6: Dance with Me Henry P&S Disc 7: The Killing P&S Disc 8: Moby Dick P&S Disc 9: Twelve Angry Men WS Disc 10: Paths of Glory P&S Disc 11: Witness For The Prosecution WS Disc 12: The Big Country WS Disc 13: The Defiant Ones WS Disc 14: I Want To Live! WS Disc 15: A Hole In The Head WS Disc 16: The Fugitive Kind WS Disc 17: Some Like It Hot WS Disc 1 Disc 18: Some Like It Hot WS Disc 2 Disc 19: The Alamo WS Disc 20: The Apartment WS Disc 21: Elmer Gantry WS Disc 22: Inherit The Wind WS Disc 23: The Magnificent Seven WS Disc 1 Disc 24: The Magnificent Seven WS Disc 2 Disc 25: Judgment at Nuremberg WS Disc 26: The Misfits WS Disc 27: One, Two, Three WS Disc 28: Pocketful of Miracles WS Disc 29: Westside Story Disc 1 WS Disc 30: Westside Story Disc 2 Disc 31: Birdman of Alcatraz WS Disc 32: Dr. No WS Disc 1 Disc 33: Dr. No WS Disc 2 Disc 34: Manchurian Candidate WS Disc 35: The Miracle Worker WS Disc 36: The Great Escape WS Disc 1 Disc 37: The Great Escape WS Disc 2 Disc 38: I Could Go On Singing WS Disc 39: Irma La Douce WS Disc 40: It's a Mad, Mad, Mad World WS Disc 41: Fistful of Dollars WS Disc 1 Disc 42: Fistful of Dollars WS Disc 2 Disc 43: The Pink Panther WS Disc 44: Topkapi WS Disc 45: The Greatest Story Ever Told WS Disc 1 Disc 46: The Greatest Story Ever Told WS Disc 2 Disc 47: The Fortune Cookie WS Disc 48: Persona P&S Disc 49: The Good, The Bad and the Ugly Disc 1 WS Disc 50: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly Disc 2 Disc 51: In The Heat of the Night WS Disc 52: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang WS Disc 1 Disc 53: Chitty Chitty Bang Bang WS Disc 2 Disc 54: Hang 'Em High WS Disc 55: Thomas Crown Affair (1968) WS Disc 56: Yours, Mine and Ours P&S Disc 57: Fellini Satyricon WS Disc 58: The Battle of Britain WS Disc 1 Disc 59: The Battle of Britain WS Disc 2 Disc 60: Midnight Cowboy WS Disc 1 Disc 61: Midnight Cowboy WS Disc 2 Disc 62: On Her Majesty's Secret Service WS Disc 1 Disc 63: On Her Majesty's Secret Service WS Disc 2 Disc 64: Fiddler on the Roof WS Disc 1 Disc 65: Fiddler on the Roof WS Disc 2 Disc 66: Everything You Always Wanted To Know About Sex P&S Disc 67: Last Tango In Paris WS Disc 68: Lenny WS Disc 69: The Wilby Conspiracy WS Disc 70: Carrie WS Disc 71: The Missouri Breaks WS Disc 72: The Pink Panther Strikes Again WS Disc 73: Rocky WS Disc 1 Disc 74: Rocky WS Disc 2 Disc 75: Annie Hall P&S Disc 76: A Bridge Too Far WS Disc 1 Disc 77: A Bridge Too Far WS Disc 2 Disc 78: Equus WS Disc 79: New York, New York WS Disc 80: The Spy Who Loved Me WS Disc 1 Disc 81: The Spy Who Loved Me WS Disc 2 Disc 82: Coming Home WS Disc 83: La Cage Aux Folles WS Disc 84: The Last Waltz P&S Disc 85: Manhattan WS Disc 86: Raging Bull WS Disc 1 Disc 87: Raging Bull WS Disc 2 Disc 88: The French Lieutenant's Woman WS Disc 89: Heaven's Gate WS Disc 90: The Secret of the NIMH WS Disc 91: War games WS Disc 92: Red Dawn WS Disc 1 Disc 93: Red Dawn WS Disc 2 Disc 94: The Living Daylights - Disc 1 Disc 95: The Living Daylights - Disc 2 Disc 96: Baby Boom WS Disc 97: Child's Play Disc 98: Rain Man WS Disc 99: Road House WS Disc 100: Goldeneye WS Disc 1 Disc 101: Goldeneye WS Disc 2 Disc 102: Leaving Las Vegas WS Disc 103: Richard III WS Disc 104: The Birdcage WS Disc 105: The Man In The Iron Mask WS Disc 106: No Man's Land WS Disc 107: Bowling for Columbine WS Disc 108: Dark Blue WS Disc 109: Pieces of April WS Disc 110: Hotel Rwanda WS