The Outsiders (film)

The Outsiders
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Francis Ford Coppola
Produced by	Gray Frederickson Fred Roos
Screenplay by	Kathleen Rowell
Based on	The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton
Starring	C. Thomas Howell Matt Dillon Ralph Macchio Patrick Swayze Rob Lowe Diane Lane Emilio Estevez Tom Cruise Leif Garrett
Music by	Carmine Coppola
Cinematography	Stephen H. Burum
Editing by	Rob Bonz Anne Goursaud Melissa Kent Roy Waldspurger
Studio	Zoetrope Studios
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	March 25, 1983 (1983-03-25)
Running time	91 minutes 113 minutes (The Complete Novel)
Country	United States
Language	English
Box office	$25,697,647

The Outsiders is a 1983 American drama film directed by Francis Ford Coppola, an adaptation of the novel The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton. The film was released in March 1983. Jo Ellen Misakian, a librarian at Lone Star Elementary School in Fresno, California, and her students were responsible for inspiring Coppola to make the film.

The film is noted for its cast of up-and-coming stars, including C. Thomas Howell (who garnered a Young Artist Award), Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevez, Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, and Diane Lane. The film helped spark the Brat Pack genre of the 1980s. Both Lane and Dillon went on to appear in Coppola's related film Rumble Fish.

Plot

During the 1960s, the Greasers are a gang of tough, low-income youths in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Their members include Ponyboy Curtis (C. Thomas Howell) and his two older brothers, Sodapop (Rob Lowe) and Darry (Patrick Swayze), as well as Johnny Cade (Ralph Macchio), Dallas "Dally" Winston (Matt Dillon), Two-Bit Matthews (Emilio Estevez), and Steve Randle (Tom Cruise). Their fateful rivalry is with the Socs (pronounced "soashes," short for the word 'Social'), a gang of preppier, wealthier kids. There is a series of confrontations. Five of the Socs jump Ponyboy and cut his neck with a switchblade; Johnny had been attacked similarly a month earlier. Bob Sheldon (Leif Garrett) and Randy Adderson (Darren Dalton), two of the Socs, confront Johnny, Ponyboy, and Two-Bit, who have befriended their girlfriends, Cherry (Diane Lane) and Marcia (Michelle Meyrink), at a drive-in. The girls defuse the situation by going home with the Soc boys. Ponyboy and Johnny are attacked later in a park by Bob (who's drunk), Randy and two other Socs. They begin drowning Ponyboy in a fountain, but Johnny comes to his rescue by pulling out his own switchblade and stabbing Bob, killing him.

Ponyboy and Johnny leave town. With advice and supplies from Dally, they hide out in an abandoned church. Ponyboy dyes his hair blonde in case anybody spots him and Johnny cuts his. He reads Gone with the Wind and quotes the Robert Frost poem "Nothing Gold Can Stay". Dally arrives with news that Cherry has offered to support the boys in court. They go out for something to eat, then return to find that the church has caught fire with some children trapped inside. Johnny, Ponyboy and Dally rescue the children. Ponyboy suffers minor injuries, while Johnny and Dally are hospitalized with a burn to the arm (Dally) and severe burns and a broken back (Johnny). The boys are praised for their heroism, but Johnny is charged with manslaughter for killing Bob, while Ponyboy and Soda may be taken into foster care.

Bob's death has sparked calls from the Socs for a "rumble," though Randy secretly confesses to Ponyboy that he is weary of fighting and does not want to participate, as nothing will change. Though he is sympathetic to Randy's feelings, Ponyboy stands with the Greasers, who are victorious after the brutal fistfight. Dally then drives Ponyboy to the hospital to visit Johnny. Having lost interest in fighting, Johnny is unimpressed by the victory. He dies after telling Ponyboy to "stay gold," referring to the Frost poem. Unable to bear Johnny's death, Dally robs a grocery store at gunpoint with an unloaded .45. The clerk fires at a fleeing Dally, hitting him once. Dally calls Darry and the other Greasers, asking them to get him at the park. Dally is surrounded by police at the park and pulls out his unloaded gun. The cops gun him down, just as the Greasers arrive, calling out at them to stop. Ponyboy faints from a minor concussion, exhaustion and shock. Ponyboy eventually is cleared of wrongdoing in Bob's death and allowed to stay with his brothers. Turning the pages of Johnny's copy of Gone with the Wind, Ponyboy finds a letter from Johnny saying that saving the children was worth sacrificing his own life. As the story ends, Ponyboy is writing a school report about his experiences.

Cast

Greasers

• C. Thomas Howell as Ponyboy Curtis
• Ralph Macchio as Johnny Cade
• Matt Dillon as Dallas "Dally" Winston
• Rob Lowe as Sodapop "Soda" Curtis
• Patrick Swayze as Darrel "Darry" Curtis
• Emilio Estevez as Keith "Two-Bit" Mathews
• Tom Cruise as Steve Randle
• Glenn Withrow as Tim Shephard

Socs

• Diane Lane as Sherri "Cherry" Valance
• Leif Garrett as Bob Sheldon
• Darren Dalton as Randy Adderson
• Michelle Meyrink as Marcia

Others

• Tom Waits as Buck Merrill
• Gailard Sartain as Jerry Wood
• S. E. Hinton as Nurse in Dallas' hospital room.
• William Smith as Store clerk

Production

Francis Ford Coppola had not intended to make a film about teen angst until middle-school students from Lone Star Elementary School in Fresno, California, great fans of The Godfather, wrote to him about adapting The Outsiders. When Coppola read the book, he was moved not only to adapt and direct "The Outsiders", but to follow it the next year by adapting another S.E. Hinton novel, Rumble Fish. The latter film's cast included Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, and Glenn Withrow from "The Outsiders".

The film cost $10 Million to produce.

In order to create tension among the actors playing the rival gangs, Coppola is said to have devised a scheme, whereby those cast as Socs were given luxury hotel accommodations and leather-bound scripts, while the Greaser cast was relegated to the hotel's ground floor and received tattered scripts. The cast played pranks on each other and the hotel staff during the shoot. Years later, Tom Cruise met someone who worked at the hotel, and when he realized it was the same hotel where he and the rest of the cast had stayed, his first words were, "I'm sorry."

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 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. A scene where Dallas falls out of his seat at the drive-in was unplanned.

The film was shot on location in Tulsa, Oklahoma. 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 film in the style normally found in a published play.

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

Coppola's craving for realism almost led to disaster during the church-burning scene. He pressed for "more fire", and the small, controlled blaze accidentally triggered a much larger, uncontrolled, fire, which a downpour fortunately doused.

Critical reception

The film was met with generally mixed to positive reviews from critics and audiences. Rotten Tomatoes gives The Outsiders a certified 64% "Fresh" rating on its site. One recent book said that the film's realistic portrayal of poor teenagers from the wrong side of the tracks "created a new kind of filmmaking".

Awards and nominations

The Outsiders was nominated for four Young Artist Awards, given annually since 1978 by the Young Artist Foundation. C. Thomas Howell won for "Best Young Motion Picture Actor in a Feature Film". Diane Lane was nominated for "Best Young Supporting Actress in a Motion Picture". The film was nominated for "Best Family Feature Motion Picture". Francis Ford Coppola was nominated for a Golden prize.

"The Complete Novel" re-release

In September 2005, Coppola re-released the film on DVD, including 22 minutes of additional footage and new music, as The Outsiders: The Complete Novel. Coppola re-inserted some deleted scenes to make the film more faithful to the book. In the beginning of the film, he added scenes where Ponyboy gets jumped, the gang talks about going to the movies, and Dally, Pony and Johnny bum around before going to the movies. In the end, Coppola added the scenes in court, Mr. Syme talking to Ponyboy, and Sodapop, Ponyboy and Darry in the park. Also, much of the original score was replaced with music popular in the 1960s. The film was re-rated by the MPAA as PG-13 for "violence, teen drinking and smoking, and some sexual references".

The director also removed several scenes in order to improve pacing, but they could be found on the second disc as additional scenes. In addition, Swayze, Macchio, Lane, and Howell gathered at Coppola's estate to watch the re-release, and their commentary is included on the DVD. Dillon and Lowe provided separate commentary.

Music

The original film score was composed by the director's father, Carmine Coppola; the main theme, "Stay Gold", was sung by Stevie Wonder. The original soundtrack included one rock song, Them's "Gloria".

The re-release removed much of Coppola's score, replacing it with songs from the 1950s and 1960s, including:

• "Real Wild Child" - Jerry Lee Lewis
• "Out of Limits" - The Marketts
• "Tomorrow is a Long Time" - Elvis Presley
• "Mystery Train" - Elvis Presley
• "We're Gonna Move" - Elvis Presley
• "Lend Me Your Comb" - Carl Perkins
• "Milky White Way" - Elvis Presley
• "Teen Beat" - The Ventures

External links

• Official website
• The Outsiders at the Internet Movie Database
• The Outsiders at AllRovi
• The Outsiders at Box Office Mojo
• The Outsiders at Rotten Tomatoes
• Coppola Pays a Return Visit to His 'Gone With the Wind' for Teenagers, a New York Times review of the 2005 version