The Outsiders (film)

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The Outsiders
Directed by Francis Ford Coppola
Produced by Gray Frederickson,
Fred Roos
Written by Kathleen Rowell
Starring C. Thomas Howell
Matt Dillon
Ralph Macchio
Patrick Swayze
Rob Lowe
Diane Lane
Emilio Estevez
Tom Cruise
Leif Garrett
Cinematography Stephen H. Burum
Distributed by Warner Bros.
Release date(s) March 25, 1983
Running time 91 min./114 min. (2005 Release)
Language English
Budget $10,000,000 (estimated)
IMDb profile

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.

Contents

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The main characters are Ponyboy Michael Curtis, Johnny Cade, Steve Randle, Dallas Winston, Darrel "Darry" Shaynne Curtis, Jr., Keith "Two-Bit" Mathews, and Sodapop Patrick Curtis, a gang of Greasers in Tulsa in 1966. The story is narrated by Ponyboy whose two older brothers are Darry and Sodapop. The three boys are orphaned after a car accident kills their parents and Darry is left to provide for them.

The Greasers, who tend to be less affluent, derive their nickname from the grease they use to slick back their hair. The Socs (pronounced soashes, an abbreviation of Socialites) tend to be more affluent. Although "The Outsiders" may seem to refer to the alienated Greasers, both groups are set back by economic, social, or creative limits.

At an open drive-in theater one night, Dallas starts flirting with two girls who don’t like it and tell him to leave, he finally does after one of the girls throws Coke in his face. Pony and his best buddy Johnny befriend the two Soc girls, Sherri "Cherry" Valance and Marcia. While walking them home, their drunk boyfriends Bob Sheldon and Randy Adderson catch up to them, in their Mustang. The girls decide to return home with their boyfriends to avoid a fight. Ponyboy and Johnny fall asleep in a vacant lot which results in Ponyboy coming home late. Darry becomes angry with and slaps him. Ponyboy runs out and finds Johnny at the vacant lot. They decide to run to the park to cool off.

While in the park, Bob and his Soc friends drive by, and begin to harass Ponyboy and Johnny. The Socs proceed to chase after the two boys and attempt to drown Ponyboy in a nearby fountain. Johnny takes out his switchblade and stabs Bob, killing him. Randy and the other socs run away in fright. The two boys seek help from Dallas "Dally" Winston, who gives them a loaded gun, money, and directions to an abandoned church in Windrixville to hide out in. Also, Dally tells them that he'll be down there when he thinks it's safe. They take the 3:15 freight.

While hiding out in the church, they disguise their appearance, cutting off their long greasy hair. Ponyboy bleaches his blonde with peroxide. While in hiding, the boys bond even more, and discover they both have a love for the beautiful things in life that are often not obvious. While going through the daily struggles that are overwhelming while living on the wrong side of town. Pony shares the Robert Frost poem ‘’Nothing Gold Can Stay’’ with Johnny, confessing he never quite understood it.

"The Outsiders," starring (from left): Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze and Tom Cruise
Enlarge
"The Outsiders," starring (from left): Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze and Tom Cruise

Dally comes to visit them a week later, and brings Ponyboy and Johnny to Dairy Queen to get some food. While there, he tells them that Cherry is willing to testify that her boyfriend Bob went looking for a fight and Ponyboy and Johnny fought back in self-defense. After hearing this, Johnny tells Dallas that they want to go home and turn themselves in. Dally reacts angrily, feeling they went through all they had just to give up and they drive off. After a little while, Dally tells Johnny that he doesn't want to see Johnny get hardened in jail like he did. Ponyboy is somewhat shocked because Dallas never spoke of his past in that manner, but refrains from saying anything.

On the way back, they see that the church they had been staying in is on fire, most likely because of the cigarettes they had been smoking there. When they hear children trapped inside, Ponyboy and Johnny both run in to rescue the children. Ponyboy describes this as the first time Johnny did not have his usual scared, beaten-down look. Unfortunately, that does not last for long, because a burning roof beam falls on Johnny right before he was going to get out. Just before he plans to go back in, Ponyboy is knocked to the ground by Dally, in an effort to put out the flames on his jacket. When Dally realizes what has happened, he immediately goes inside the church to rescue Johnny.

They are taken back to the hospital in town, Dally with minor burns on his arm and Ponyboy with nothing wrong except for some bruises. However, Johnny is in critical condition with severe burns and a broken lower back, presumably rendering him paraplegic. Ponyboy reconciles with his worried brothers, finally realizing that Darry does care about him after all, and the gang prepares for a big "rumble" (fight) with the Socs, which was sparked by the stabbing. The next day, Ponyboy meets Steve and Two-Bit, who show him that he, Johnny and Dally are heroes for saving the children, but he is to appear at juvenile court for running off and Johnny is still being charged for manslaughter. The Socs, apparently, all told the police that it was their fault that Bob got killed, and that Ponyboy and Johnny only fought back in self-defense.

The day of the rumble, Ponyboy is confronted by Randy, one of the other Socs who was trying to drown him that fateful night. He says that he doesn't want to fight in the rumble, that nothing good would come of it. It is learned that he was sick of the fighting, and he had to tell someone about the whole mess. After this, both Randy and Ponyboy have different ideas of each other, and Randy ends up deciding that he will not be attending the rumble.

Dally breaks out of the hospital to fight in the rumble. He is determined to fight for Johnny; and the Greasers are victorious. After the rumble, Dally and Ponyboy speed down the road in the car that Dallas borrowed from Buck Merril, his employer. When they get to the hospital, the doctor stops them, saying that Johnny is dying, but Dallas flips out his switchblade. The doctor replies that the switch-blade does not frighten him, but the boys could see Johnny because they were his family, or as close a family as Johnny had. When they enter the hospital room, Dallas tells Johnny how they had beat the Socs in the rumble, but Johnny says that "fighting ain't no good", so Dally proceeds to tell Johnny that he is proud of him. This is what Johnny has been waiting to hear, his hero saying that he is proud of him. Johnny leans over to Ponyboy and faintly tells him to "stay gold". Then, Johnny dies. Dally storms out of the room in pain and heartbreak; Johnny was the only thing that Dally had ever loved.

Ponyboy returns home to tell the rest of the gang that Johnny had died. The gang is shocked by the revelation, despite the fact that they knew that Johnny had been in bad condition. Meanwhile, a conflicted Dally feels his emotions and sense of loss have hit the breaking point, as he can no longer go to anybody for help. Feeling he has no one to help him, he takes extreme measures and plans his last stand. A few minutes later, he calls the gang from a pay phone, saying that he had robbed a convenience store. The gang meets Dallas at the vacant lot hoping to hide him, where Dallas is surrounded by police. Dallas then pulls out an unloaded gun and commits suicide by police in front of his friends.

Ponyboy wonders for a split second why he had pulled it out if it was unloaded, but then he quickly understands that Dallas had wanted to be dead; he had lost the only thing in the whole world that really mattered to him. After the police kill Dallas, Ponyboy passes out due to shock, exhaustion, sickness, and a concussion from being kicked in the head during the rumble.

Later on, while flipping through his copy of Gone With the Wind, he finds a letter Johnny wrote to him, explaining "staying gold" in the poem meant to never lose the appreciation for the things you find wondrous when you're young. He tells Ponyboy that's the way to be, and urges him to tell Dally. Ponyboy knows it is too late to tell Dally, and he thinks of all of the other kids in the world that could be going through the same thing. Thoughts roll through his head of Johnny, Dallas, Bob, and all the others, of kids that would die young, of kids that would stay hoodlums forever, and he felt he needed to do something about it. The movie ends with the first line: 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...

Spoilers end here.

[edit] 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.

Tom Waits also appears in the film in small cameo parts.

Matt Dillon, Diane Lane and Tom Waits all went on to star in Coppola's related film, Rumble Fish, which was based on the second in a trilogy of S. E. Hinton books along with That Was Then, This Is Now.

[edit] Differences between novel and film

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
  • In the movie, there is a much greater description of where the Socs and the Greasers hang out, as in the book there isn't.
  • In the novel, the two main sides of town are East and West; in the film, they are North and South. S.E. Hinton originally wrote it as North and South; it was changed to East and West because North/South was a real rivalry at the time. Coppola made the decision to go with the original in the film.
  • Two-Bit's switchblade is changed to a balisong, or butterfly knife, in the film.
  • While talking to Cherry for the first time in the film, Ponyboy does not mention a few things he talks about in the novel; among them, Soda's favorite horse, Mickey Mouse, and watching sunsets.
  • It is mentioned in the novel that Steve Randle almost had his jaw shattered by Darry after remarking that the older boy was "all brawn and no brain." In the film, he says this without any consequences before the rumble. Also, while he breaks three ribs during the rumble in the novel, he escapes with only cuts and bruises in the film, along with a missing tooth.
  • Although Sodapop's girlfriend Sandy leaves him in the novel, she is not mentioned again in the film after Sodapop announces his plans to marry her.
  • Dallas is not approached by a little girl in Windrixville in the novel as he is in the film.
  • Ponyboy talks with Dally during the rumble in the novel; in the film, he does not.
  • The Brumly Boys do not fight in the rumble in the film, although they are present in the novel.
  • Ponyboy keeps Two-Bit from arguing with Johnny's mother in the novel because he doesn't like to see women get verbally abused "even if they deserved it"; however, in the film, he does not intercede when Two-Bit cusses out Johnny's mother.
  • Randy does not visit Ponyboy after the rumble in the film.
  • In the beginning of the novel, Ponyboy is beat up by Socs and then found by Sodapop and Darry.
Spoilers end here.

[edit] 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 where Ponyboy and Johnny are at the church from the original cut have been deleted. They are included in the new deleted scenes on the DVD.

[edit] Trivia

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Content in the trivia section should be integrated into other appropriate areas of the article.

Some of this trivia information can also be found here.

  • The part where Dally falls out of his chair at the movies was not originally part of the script. If you look closely, you can see a laughing C. Thomas Howell looking briefly at the lens, expecting Coppola to yell "Cut!"
  • 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 Dillion.
  • 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. They were known to play pranks on each other (and the hotel staff) during the shoot, and years later, when Tom Cruise came back to the place, the first thing he said upon learning that this was the same hotel was "I'm sorry."
  • Although Kathleen Rowell is the credited writer of the script, Coppola was dissatisfied with her version of the novel and wrote the screenplay himself. Because he wasn't a certified member of the Writer's Guild of America, Rowell kept the credit as the official writer.
  • 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 Cherry learns about Soda's horseriding career and love for a horse named Mickey Mouse from Ponyboy. It was to show that Soda has also suffered more heartbreak before his girlfriend leaves him, as well as the brothers' sense of loss, but Coppola cut it because he felt it slowed the film's pace down.
  • Nicolas Cage really wanted the role of Dally. 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 was his uncle, was impressed by his dedication to the role and offered him the role of Two-Bit, as Matt Dillion 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.
  • The part where Two-Bit picks up the hat was also not in the script (the hat belongs to one of the crew members).
  • S.E. Hinton played the nurse in Dally's hospital room.
  • Tom Cruise originally auditioned for the roles of Randy Anderson and Dally.
  • The film is shot on location in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The drive-in is the Admiral Twin, still going strong in 2006. Allegedly, everything from the hole in the fence to the playground to the outdoor seats are still there.
  • 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. Also, many of the same cast and crew members worked in both films.
  • The credits are shown at the beginning of the movie in the style normally found in a published play.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:
Francis Ford Coppola
The Godfather series The Godfather (1972) | The Godfather Part II (1974) | The Godfather Part III (1990)
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 Conversation | Apocalypse Now
1980s One from the Heart | The Outsiders | Rumble Fish | The Cotton Club | Peggy Sue Got Married | Gardens of Stone | Tucker: The Man and His Dream | New York Stories (with Woody Allen and Martin Scorsese)
1990s Bram Stoker's Dracula | Jack | The Rainmaker
2000s Youth Without Youth
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