Information about The Outsiders (film)

The Outsiders
Directed by	Francis Ford Coppola
Produced by	Gray Frederickson, Fred Roos
Written by	S.E. Hinton (novel) Kathleen Rowell (screenplay)
Starring	C. Thomas Howell Ralph Macchio Matt Dillon Patrick Swayze Rob Lowe Emilio Estevez Tom Cruise
Music by	Carmine Coppola Michael Z. Gordon (2005 edition) Dave Padrutt (2005 edition) Michael Seifert (2005 edition)
Cinematography	Stephen H. Burum
Editing by	Anne Goursaud Rob Bonz (2005 edition) Melissa Kent (2005 edition) Roy Waldspurger (2005 edition)
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Universal Studios Home Entertainment (DVD)[1]
Release date(s)	March 25, 1983
Running time	91 min./113 min. (2005 Release)
Country
Language	English
Budget	$10,000,000 (estimated)
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The Outsiders is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by S. E. Hinton, and was made in 1983 by Francis Ford Coppola.

The main characters are the Curtis brothers, Ponyboy, Sodapop, and Darry, and their friends Johnny Cade, Dallas Winston, Steve Randle, Keith "Two-Bit" Mathews. Together, they are a gang of greasers in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1967. The story is narrated by Ponyboy. The Curtis boys are orphaned after their parents are killed in a car accident. As a result, Darry forgoes college to care for his brothers so that the family will not be broken up.

The Greasers are, at first glance, the common stereotype of the juvenile delinquent. Their nickname is derived from the grease they use to slick back their long hair. The Socs (pronounced soashes, an abbreviation of Socialites) are the "haves" to the Greasers' "have nots." Although "The Outsiders" may seem to refer to the alienated Greasers, both groups are set back by economic, social, or creative limits.

Plot

Dallas, Ponyboy, and Johnny sneak into a drive-in theater and seat themselves behind two Soc girls, Cherry and Marcia. Dallas starts flirting with the girls and refuses to leave them alone until Johnny tells him to back off. Dallas leaves, and the girls ask Ponyboy and Johnny to sit with them. Later, the boys are walking the girls home when their drunken boyfriends, Bob and Randy, catch up to them in their Mustang. Bob and Randy are itching to fight, but Cherry defuses the situation by asking Bob and Randy to take Marcia and her home. Johnny and Ponyboy go to a vacant lot and end up falling asleep. When Ponyboy goes home, Darry is upset with worry and, during the confrontation, hits Ponyboy. Ponyboy runs from the house back to the vacant lot and wakes Johnny. They go to a nearby park to cool off.

At the park, Ponyboy and Johnny are confronted and harassed by Bob, Randy, and their friends. The Socs try to drown Ponyboy in a fountain, but flee after Johnny draws his switchblade and stabs Bob to death. Ponyboy and Johnny seek help from Dallas, who gives them a loaded gun, money, and directions to an abandoned church in Windrixville, where they are to hide out until Dallas comes to retrieve them.

Ponyboy and Johnny cut off their hair to make themselves less recognizable, and Ponyboy bleaches his with peroxide. The boys pass the time by smoking cigarettes, playing cards, and eating baloney sandwiches. Ponyboy also reads to Johnny from a paperback copy of Gone with the Wind and shares the Robert Frost poem Nothing Gold Can Stay with him. Ponyboy confesses that he never quite understood the poem.

One week later, Dallas comes to visit the boys and takes them to get some hot food. Dallas tells Ponyboy and Johnny that Cherry is willing to stick up for them to the authorities. Johnny says that he and Ponyboy want to go home and turn themselves in, which upsets Dallas. Nevertheless, he starts the drive back home.

Ponyboy and Johnny see smoke from the direction of the abandoned church. They beg Dallas to drive by and they see that the church is on fire. When they hear the cries of children trapped inside, Ponyboy and Johnny both run in to rescue them. They get all the children out safely. Ponyboy escapes the inferno, but a roof beam collapses and falls on Johnny, who is still inside. Dallas immediately moves to rescue Johnny. Dallas, Ponyboy, and Johnny are taken to the hospital. Dallas has minor injuries, and Ponyboy is basically unhurt, but Johnny is in critical condition with severe burns and a broken lower back. Darry and Sodapop reunite with Ponyboy and, as the brothers hug each other tightly, Darry cries openly,(something he hasn't done in years not even at his parents funeral) relieved that Ponyboy is alive. Johnny asks for a new copy of Gone with the Wind to replace the one lost in the fire.

The next day, Ponyboy is resting at home when Steve and Two-Bit come over. They show him a newspaper article that calls Ponyboy, Johnny, and Dallas heroes for rescuing the children in Windrixville, and that Johnny is being charged with manslaughter for killing Bob. Even though Randy and the other Socs had admitted that they had been the aggressors, and that Ponyboy and Johnny were only defending themselves, Bob's death at Johnny's hands has sparked the call for a gang fight, or a "rumble," from the Socs.

The day of the rumble, Randy seeks out Ponyboy and admits that he does not want to fight in the rumble, nor will he, because he feels that no matter what the outcome, nothing would change. He has grown weary of all the fighting, is ready to leave town just to get away from it, and wanted to tell someone who he felt would understand how he feels.

Dallas breaks out of the hospital to join in the rumble. The rumble begins, ending with the Greasers victorious. As the Greasers revel in their win, Dallas and Ponyboy rush to the hospital. The head doctor initially refuses to let them see Johnny because he is dying, but eventually relents. Dallas tells Johnny about the Greasers' victory, but Johnny seems disinterested. Dallas then tells Johnny that he is proud of him, which fills the younger boy with happiness. Johnny looks over at Ponyboy and tells him to "stay gold," and with that, Johnny passes away. Completely heartbroken, Dallas flees from the room.

Ponyboy returns home to tell the rest of the gang that Johnny is dead and that Dallas ran off. The gang is worried about what Dallas might do, and their worry becomes alarm when Darry receives a phone call from Dallas, who had robbed a convenience store and was now being pursued by the police. He tells the gang to meet him at the vacant lot. The gang races to the vacant lot to intercept Dallas, but they are too late; Dallas is already surrounded by police officers. He pulls out an unloaded gun and commits suicide by police in front of his horrified friends.

Days later, Ponyboy is flipping through the copy of Gone With the Wind that Johnny had left behind and finds a letter from Johnny, addressed to him. Johnny's letter explains that the phrase "staying gold" in the Frost poem means to never lose the appreciation for the things one finds wondrous when one is young. He urges Ponyboy to tell Dallas about it. The film ends with him writing the opening line of the film, which is also the first line of the novel: When I stepped out into the bright sunlight, from the darkness of the movie house, I had only two things on my mind: Paul Newman and a ride home...

Cast

The Outsiders is notable for being the breakout film for a number of actors who would go on to become major stars. Though they were known within the industry as up-and-coming actors, none of the cast had yet had achieved any degree of success prior to being chosen for the film.

• Matt Dillon as Dallas 'Dally' Winston
• Ralph Macchio as Johnny Cade
• C. Thomas Howell as Ponyboy Michael Curtis
• Patrick Swayze as Darrel "Darry" Shaynne Curtis Jr.
• Rob Lowe as Sodapop Patrick Curtis
• Emilio Estevez as Keith "Two-Bit" Mathews
• Tom Cruise as Steve Randle
• Glenn Withrow as Tim Shepard
• Diane Lane as Cherry Valance
• Leif Garrett as Bob Sheldon
• Darren Dalton as Randy Adderson
• Michelle Meyrink as Marcia
• Gailard Sartain as Jerry Wood
• Tom Waits as Buck Merrill

Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Glenn Withrow and Tom Waits all went on to star in Coppola's related film, Rumble Fish, which was based on the S.E. Hinton novel.

Nicolas Cage really wanted the role of Dallas Winston. Before the audition, he locked himself in his house for a week with nothing but beer and did not shave for two weeks. Coppola, who is his uncle, was impressed by his dedication to the role and offered him the role of Two-Bit Mathews, since Matt Dillon had already been cast as Dallas. Cage turned down the role of Two-Bit, because he thought the character was basically a drunk with no importance in the story. Cage does appear in a brief cameo during the rumble scene.

Anthony Michael Hall read for the role of Ponyboy Curtis. Helen Slater was briefly considered for Cherry Valance before Diane Lane was cast. Tom Cruise originally auditioned for the roles of Randy Adderson and Dallas Winston.

S.E. Hinton played the nurse in Dallas' hospital room. In a foreword for a platinum edition of the novel, she stated that she was very much involved in the production of the film and enjoyed spending time with "her boys" (namely, the actors who played Dallas, Ponyboy, Johnny, and the others) during production.

Stevie Wonder performed the song "Stay Gold" for the movie. Because of the movie's success, Wonder released the song on his album, Natural Wonder, but with a different melody than the film's.

Re-release

In September 2005, Coppola re-released the film, including 22 minutes of additional footage, entitled The Outsiders: The Complete Novel, reinserting previously deleted scenes that helped bring this new version much closer to the book. However, a couple of scenes of Ponyboy and Johnny at the abandoned church from the original cut have been deleted; they are included in the deleted scenes segment of the DVD.

Production

Francis Ford Coppola never actually wanted to make a movie about teen angst. What changed his mind was a middle school class, great fans of The Godfather, wrote to him about making a sort of gangster film, except about The Outsiders. When he read the book, he was moved and not only directed the film, he also adapted Rumble Fish into a movie the year after, again with Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, and Glenn Withrow.

Dallas falling out of his seat at the drive-in was unplanned. Close examination of that segment, shows a laughing C. Thomas Howell looking briefly at the camera, expecting Coppola to yell "Cut!"

The actors playing the Socs were put in luxury hotel accommodations and given leather-bound scripts, while the Greaser-actors were put on the ground floor and received tattered scripts. Coppola is said to have done this to create tension between both groups before filming. The cast played pranks on each other and the hotel staff during the shoot. Years later, Tom Cruise revisited the hotel, and when he discovered that it was the same hotel where he and the rest of the cast had stayed, his first words were, "I'm sorry."

Francis Ford Coppola went to arbitration unsuccessfully for the writing credits of this film.

Two-Bit's fascination with Mickey Mouse, as shown in a later scene in the film, was thought up by Emilio Estevez, who approached the character as a "laid back, easy-going guy." This could also be a reference to a deleted scene (not included on the DVD) where Ponyboy tells Cherry about Sodapop's horseriding career and love for a horse named Mickey Mouse. The scene was also intended to highlight that Sodapop's having already suffered some heartbreak before his girlfriend leaves him, as well as the brothers' own sense of loss, but Coppola cut it because he felt it slowed the film's pace down.

The film was shot on location in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The drive-in is the Admiral Twin, still going strong in 2007.

Coppola filmed The Outsiders and Rumble Fish back-to-back in 1982. He wrote the screenplay for the latter while on days off from shooting the former. Many of the same locations were used in both films, as were many of the same cast and crew members.

The credits are shown at the beginning of the movie in the style normally found in a published play.

Two-Bit is seen wearing a Misfits skull band logo on his t-shirt in a few scenes. The film and novel took place in 1967, and the Misfits did not come together until the 1970's. Although the "Misfits" skull is derived from the 1946 movie "The Crimson Ghost," there are slight differences between the Crimson Ghost skull and the Misfits skull logo.

Goofs

• Dallas Winston falls out of his chair at the drive-in. This was completely unintended, but the directors kept it in the film anyway. When Dallas falls out of his chair, Ponyboy starts laughing. When the camera goes back to Ponyboy, you can still hear him laughing even though his mouth is not moving at all. Thomas Howell looks right at the camera.
• When Ponyboy, Dallas, and Johnny sneak into the drive-in movie lot, the movie screen shows a scene of a man and a woman skydiving. Later, when Cherry and Marcia angrily leave their boyfriends' car, the same skydiving scene is on the movie screen.
• When Two-Bit, Ponyboy, and Johnny are walking home from the movies, a cowboy hat blows by. The audio commentary of the re-release reveals that it was actually a tech's hat which had blown away because of the many wind machines they had going on. As Coppola had done previously, he left the scene intact, saying that it was a fortunate mistake.

References

External links

•  • [ e] Francis Ford Coppola
1960s	Battle Beyond the Sun (with Aleksandr Kozyr and M. Karzhukov) The Bellboy and the Playgirls (with Fritz Umgelter and Jack Hill) Tonight for Sure Dementia 13 You're a Big Boy Now Finian's Rainbow The Rain People
1970s	The Godfather The Conversation The Godfather Part II Apocalypse Now
1980s	One from the Heart The Outsiders Rumble Fish The Cotton Club Peggy Sue Got Married Gardens of Stone New York Stories (with Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese)
1990s	The Godfather Part III Bram Stoker's Dracula Jack The Rainmaker
2000s	Youth Without Youth Tetro
Productions	The Junky's Christmas (1993) Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (1994) Don Juan DeMarco (1995) Lani Loa (1998) The Florentine (1999) The Virgin Suicides (1999)