The Outsiders


Director: Francis Ford Coppola
Writter: S.E. Hinton (novel) and Kathleen Rowell
Tom Plays: Steve Randle
Status: ON DVD

Plot

When two poor greasers, Johnny, and Ponyboy are assaulted by a vicious gang, the socs, and Johnny kills one of the attackers, tension begins to mount between the two rival gangs, setting off a turbulent chain of events.

Goofs

Continuity: When the boys arrive at the church fire, Johnny opens his door on the passenger side of the convertible twice.

Anachronisms: When Ponyboy and Johnny go to the bar to see Dally, there is a song playing on the juke box called ‘Jack Daniels if you please’ by David Allan Coe, this song was written and released in 1978 although the movie takes place in the 1966.

Continuity: During the rumble, the Greasers and Socs are alternately wet/dry between shots, and the mud on Paul’s white pants appears, and disappears, etc.

Continuity: Johnny’s newspaper photo has him with short hair, but he didn’t have his hair cut until just before the fire- from which he got severe burns. In his photo he is fresh faced.

Continuity: Dally rolls the window down to talk to the policeman, but when the policeman goes in front to escort him, the window is suddenly up and is instantly fogged up again.

Continuity: Randy is leaning on the car as he talks to Ponyboy, but in the close-up view only his arm is leaning on the car.

Anachronisms: When Dally uses phone, a tilted In-and-Out burger cup is visible. There were fewer than 20 open at the time, and only in Southern California.

Continuity: The bruise around Dally’s right eye varies in size between shots after the rumble and into the hospital.

Audio/visual unsynchronized: When Dally, Johnny and Ponyboy are watching the movie at the drive in, Ponyboy starts laughing, but in the next shot we see a background shot of Ponyboy not laughing while the audio track of his laughing is still continuing

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: Dallas falling out of the chair at the Drive-in was an accident and was not rehearsed. Ponyboy looks at the camera expecting Francis Ford Coppola to say cut, but they kept the shot instead.

Continuity: When Ponyboy is standing in front of the bathroom mirror, he is wiping his face with a towel. In the next shot where Sodapop comes out of the shower, you see Ponyboy standing in front of the mirror combing his hair.

Continuity: When Dally is in the hospital on his bed, he asks for a pocket knife. In the first shot he is reaching with his left hand while his right hand is under the blanket. In the next shot, he is reaching with his right hand.

Continuity: When Johnny and Ponyboy are at the park, and the Socs first get there, Johnny reaches for his blade, in that shot Johnny’s jeans have a hole on the pocket. In the next shot that he takes out his blade the hole is gone.

Continuity: When the boys are breaking into the church there is some glass still attached to the sides of the window. They knock down some of it from the top, but some on the sides and top is still there. It disappears when they go through.

Anachronisms: After the boys come over for breakfast near the end of the movie, Ponyboy goes out on the porch. When he goes out there is a rip in the screen in door. When he comes back in the rip is gone.

Continuity: When the Soc’s chase after Ponyboy and Johnny after he spits in Bobs face, there is a duck in the fountain in one shot, and then the next it’s gone.

Continuity: When Johnny returns from the store and shows Ponyboy the peroxide, shots change from him having a candy bar hanging out of his mouth and no candy bar.

Quotes

Steve: Hate to tell you this buddy, but you have to wear clothes to work. There’s a law or something.

Ponyboy: [reading the paper] They’re thinking about putting me and Soda in a boys’ home. No way! They ain’t putting me in no boys’ home.
Steve: Don’t worry, Ponyboy, they don’t do that to heroes. Hey, where is Soda and Super-dope, anyhow?

Sodapop Curtis: Hey, after we beat those Socs tonight, good me and Steve are gonna throw a huge party, and everyone’s gonna get ripped!
Steve: OWWWW! WHOOO!
Darrel Curtis: Where you gonna get the dough, li’l man?
Sodapop Curtis: Uhhh… I’ll think of something.
[Sits on couch] Sodapop Curtis: Hey Two-bit, Mickey’s on TV!
[Two-bit sits in front of the TV to watch]

Steve: Smart-ass. He is a smart-ass kid!

Steve: Where is Soda and Superdope, anyway?
Darrel Curtis: [coming in] Super what?
Steve: All brawn, no brains.

Steve: Beer for breakfast there, Two-Bit?

Steve: What do you think, man? You think it makes me look tough?
Sodapop Curtis: I think it makes you look different.
Steve: What’d you mean, “different”?
Sodapop Curtis: Well, you got a hole in your mouth.

Trivia

During filming, the actors playing the “soc”s were given leather-bound scripts and were put up in luxury accommodations, while the “greasers” were given battered paperback scripts and had to stay in the ground floor of the hotel, as director Francis Ford Coppola wanted to create tension between the two groups.

The letter jacket that the “soc” is wearing as he challenges Darrel is the letter jacket from the High School that author S.E. Hinton attended.
Over a half hour of the film was cut before release, due to movie executives fearing it to be too long and a chance of upsetting fans of the book, making the movie a mere 91 minutes. In 2005, a “director’s cut” DVD of this film was released that restores much of this footage.

Cameo: [S.E. Hinton] a nurse in the hospital.

The actors pulled some pranks in the hotel in which they stayed while shooting this movie. Years later, Tom Cruise was introduced to someone who said he worked at the hotel Cruise and the rest of the cast stayed in while they shot this movie. The first thing Cruise said when he heard that was “I’m sorry.”

The film is based on a book that is very popular among junior high and high school students. A school class was actually responsible for Francis Ford Coppola making this film. A class voted Coppola the director they would most like to see direct a film of the book. The school sent a letter and a copy of the book to Coppola. Coppola read the book and the letter. He was so moved, he made both this film and Rumble Fish.

Francis Coppola threw out Kathleen Rowell’s script, wrote his own, and filmed the new screenplay. However, due to a decision by the Writer’s Guild, Coppola was unable to secure a credit for himself.

When Dallas falls out of his chair at the Drive-In, it was completely accidental, and Ponyboy (C. Thomas Howell) looks briefly at the camera while laughing.

Ponyboy has a scab on his neck, that is visible in quite a few scenes, that was the result of being cut by a Soc in the original opening where Ponyboy is jumped by Socs after leaving a movie theater.

Helen Slater auditioned for a part in the film.

During the rumble scene, the first punch which goes to Ponyboy really hits him in the chin. This wasn’t supposed to be a real hit, but it accidentally was. (C. Thomas Howell can actually be seen spitting out blood as he falls to the ground.)

‘Rob Lowe’ had also auditioned for the role of Randy Anderson.

In addition to the 22 minutes of restored footage in the 2005 “Complete Novel” DVD, there are additional scenes that are not included, such as:
an extension of the “walking home” introduction where the Socs accost Sodapop and Steve at the DX station and Darry throws some debris from the roof of a house at their car as they drive past him. (This extension also includes more narration by Ponyboy.)
an alternate introduction to Johnny where his mother chases him out of the house with a broom, only to be stopped by Two-Bit, who rushes to Johnny’s aid.
additional footage of Ponyboy and Johnny at the church where they hide from some people riding on a horse.
an extended morning scene following the church fire where Ponyboy awakes and urges Sodapop to wake up, echoing the words he heard Darry say in his dream at the church about “rise and shine.”

Tom Cruise had a cap in his tooth removed in order to further convey the damage he received in the rumble.

During the restored dinner scene where Sodapop runs away, the character is seen with a piece of paper at the table. According to Rob Lowe, it is a “Dear John” letter from Soda’s girlfriend Sandy, whom he claimed he wished to marry.

Two-Bit’s interest in Mickey Mouse was thought up by, Emilio Estevez.

The hat that Two-Bit finds in Johnny’s yard belonged to a crew member behind the camera who lost the hat when a large fan accidentally blew it off his head.

Anthony Michael Hall read for the part of Ponyboy Curtis.

The non-profit organization producer/performer Anthony Begonia volunteers with was used as a catering home base on several occasions for the film.

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