Movies - Warriors questions Warriors, come out to playeeeaaayyy!

Cafe Society
1

The Warriors are currently playing on IFC, and I forgot how bad this movie is.

Still I like watching it when it is on, for reasons I cannot fathom.

I was going to make this a “The Warriors” is the greatest film of all time threads, but I couldn’t type that without laughing.

Anyway, for fans of this iconic gang movie based in NYC, I have some questions.

For those that need a memory nudge, there is a big meeting in the Bronx where a gang leader named Cyrus wants to consolidate all the gangs into one, and control the city. Each gang invited was permitted to have 9 of their members attend this meeting, and the implication is that the gangs are much larger than the 9 representatives they send. Cyrus is shot, forcing the Warriors to find their way back to Coney Island, where they are based.

  1. This movie was made in 1979… did gangs in NYC actually dress like many of the gangs in this movie are portrayed, or is this some elaborate joke put into the movie for entertainment value?

The easiest gang to remember (for me, anyway) was the Baseball Fury, a gang of guys dressed in matching baseball uniforms, painted faces, and baseball bats are their chosen weapons. But there was also the Orphans (poor, filthy guys with matching green t-shirts that say “orphans” on the back.) The Warriors, of course, with leather-like vests. The Rogues, who all ride around in an old, graffitied car and were the ones who really shot Cyrus and blamed the Warriors (Warriors, come out to play!), some Dexy’s Midnight Runner wannabees, all in overalls, and the leader in roller skates (it is really hard to look tough in overalls and roller skates), and a few others that if I remember I’ll mention them.

  1. Why didn’t the Warriors just contact one of their other gang members left behind to come pick them up, or at the very least meet them somewhere to build the gangs numbers for the trip home (so they could bop! their way back).

  2. all of the gang fights were poorly shot. I know we aren’t talking Oscar worthy material here, but when the 4 Warriors fight the 6 or 7 Baseball Furies in the park, they beat them easily. is there some gang etiquette that forces one on one fighting? There is one scene in particular, where one Fury is standing there with his bat in his hand, he is watching two other guys fight, and he gets tattooed from behind by a Warrior that picks up a bat from another beaten Fury.

  3. The Warriors are in incredible shape, as for most of the movie they are running. Instead of being in a gang, these guys should have all won scholarships for cross country teams in the Ivy League. Except for Cowboy, the one Warrior that couldn’t make the run through the park and got his butt kicked by a Fury. He must have been a smoker.

  4. This is a hard street gang, and yet none of them smoke, have tattoos, or missing teeth. And they forgot that they were a gang of thieves, too… because no one thought of stealing a car.

  5. when they get back to Coney, they get to the beach to fight the Rogues… except, the rest of their gang is no where to be found… why not?

  6. The biggest question of all. The leader of the Rogues keeps making phone calls throughout the movie to some “mystery voice” who seems to be pulling the strings. Who is this guy supposed to be???
    OK, so most of my questions are unanswerable… the movie is bad, the dialogue is worse than bad, and it has absolutely no logical flow to it at all.

But the first question remains… did gangs in NY wear matching outfits to identify themselves, and were they as elaborate as the movie portrays? I have to think no, but I didn’t live in NY in the 70’s, and that was a strange decade.

2

Ah, the West Side Story for the 70’s! Up there with Roadhouse for sheer cinematic brilliance! Joe Bob Briggs says check it out! :wink:

To my knowledge, the goofy-ass costumes were not de rigueur. Not to mentioned that the dude with the roller skates would’ve gotten them totally caught in the subway gratings!

3

I think it’s obvious that the look of the film (costumes,etc.) is very stylized and not meant to be realistic. I believe the director had the intention of making a comic book style film and should not be viewed as a realistic look at 1970s NYC gangs.

4

Because the movie is based on a book which is based on an ancient account called Anabasis, which is about a bunch of Greek soldiers marching through enemy territory to get to safety.

5

I thought it was the Odyssey - the Lizzies were the Lotus Eaters! A dude named Ajax! :wink:
ETA: yep; Anabasis. Cool.

6

Riffs!

7

Now THAT sounds like a movie I’d like to see!

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For pretty much my entire life, I have been trying to convince people that the best Halloween costume ever would be to get a group to go as the Baseball Furies. Come on!

9

My recollection of this movie is spotty. I have seen it several times, but not in many years. But…

  1. Real street gangs do have colors or some piece of clothing that signifies they are a member of the gang (scroll down to the bottom of the Wiki page to the section called “Identification”). There is a basis for that in reality, but the movie certainly exaggerates it for a comic book effect. As Johnny Bravo pointed out, the film was an adaption of an ancient legend, and is not meant to be a realistic depiction of street gangs.

  2. This is 1979. There are no cell phones. True they could’ve gotten to a pay phone, but they’d have to A) find a payphone in working order (again - it’s NYC in 1979), B) spent ten precious minutes to actually place the call; and given that payphones tend to be on exposed street corners (and apparently there are enemy gangs populating every square inch of the city) that’d be taking a risk, and C) have a number they could call where they know someone would pick up. It’s not like street gang drug dens tended to have land-lines installed.

  3. Would have to watch it again to comment on that; and as you said this movie is bad…

  4. I vaguely recall one of the Warriors getting apprehended in Central Park by an undercover cop posing as a hooker (who I think was played by Mercedes Reuhl.) I think she was the only actual law-enforcement / official authority type person who appears in the whole movie.

  5. Again, this is 1979. Only sailors had tatoos or piercings. (Well, OK, maybe some real street gang members might’ve had them by that time, but movie actors playing street thugs did not have tattoos and piercings. At any rate, tats / piercings would not have been nearly as prevalent then as they would be IRL even ten years later. As for not jacking a car - well, we just wouldn’t have a story if they did that, would we?

  6. Maybe the other Warriors were just hiding out until the Rogues left. They were supposed to be the badass-est of badasses, weren’t they?

  7. Again, I haven’t seen this film in a long time but I seem to recall the leader of the Rogues was giving updates to Lynn Thigpen’s DJ character. I kind of remembe that every time he placed a call, the scene would change to Thigpen’s lips breathily announcing into the microphone some update about the Warriors’ progress across the city, or a veiled threat to the Warriors themselves.

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I thought one of the points was that there were no other Warriors to call for back-up. They were a very small gang.

I’m probably wrong, though. It HAS been about 30 years since I last saw this…

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Infact the DVD has a director’s cut where comic book panels are used in editing scene changes.

12

Yeah!

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The Anabasis of Xenophon. Note the many references- Cyrus becomes Cyrus ;), Clearchus becomes Cleon, Xenophon becomes Swan. Much more explicit than in the novel, where the protagonists have names like Lunkface and Bimbo.

I actually like the film a lot for what it is :). But it is pure cartoon/comic book and must be accepted as such. It never had any relationship to gang reality* in 1970’s New York. Not even remotely. But it does have style. Goofy style, but style.

  • Or any other reality - folks don’t usually shrug off getting hammered with a baseball bat quite so bloodlessly.
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YEAH! RIGHT!

I love this idea. Count me in!

True, but these were costumes, not matching bits of blue and red bandanas (for the crypts and the bloods). The beginning of the Warriors is the best, as you see all of these gangs out for show decked out in their ridiculous costumes.

. Probably good points. The cell phone is a great point. I don’t know how they communicated in the 70’s, but a pay phone to a land line would probably be the only way.

. This was Ajax, the hard-ass Warrior who always wants to fight whatever gang is chasing them. This is an interesting scene, because the lady cop, in my opinion, is very close to the line of entrapment. She may have even crossed the line, because Ajax was non threatening at the beginning of the encounter, and she not only invites him to sit down with her, but asks him “if he wants to show her how he plays with the chicks?” He did, and she didn’t like it!

She is not the only cop in the movie… In fact the movie is crawling with cops. Cops show up at the Bronx meeting, and they chase the Warriors all through one of the subway stations, one of them gets in a wrestling match with the Warrior “Fox”, and the cop throws him on the tracks in front of an on-coming train. The woman cop in the park also blows a whistle to get a couple of squad cars to come by and throw Ajax in the car. There is no way that woman cop did things by the book. One female cop, sitting on a park bench by herself in the middle of the night? And no cops within eye sight, she has to blow a whistle for backup? She could have been killed and no one would have noticed if you believe this movie shows textbook police procedure.

Ajax did have an earring, in his left ear, but he was the only one from what I remember. And of course you are right about the idea of stealing a car. That would equal no movie. But when you consider what was created, no movie would have been the right choice.

No. The Rogues were not the toughest. That would be the Grammercy RIFFS (YEAH! RIGHT!)

Can you dig it?

This is an interesting take and one I’ve never considered before. Now, I HAVE to watch it one more time to see if this is the case, or if its even a possibility.

it is implied that you are wrong. The meeting in the Bronx called by the Riffs invited 9 guys from each major gang in the city. When the Warriors are heading back, the second gang they bumped into (the first they actually spoke to, and where the skanky girl Mercy enters the movie), are the Orphans, who are a gang not even on the Riffs radar. They have about 30 members in their gang, and are considered a nothing gang… So small, in fact, that they weren’t even invited to the meeting in the Bronx. This gives the viewer the impression that the Warriors are a much larger gang. The first gang the Warriors see and are chased by to get to the first train platform is the Turnbull AC’s (those skin-headed fucks). They were in a Bus, and numbered well over 50 (judging from the size of the bus and the number of guys jammed onto the bus.

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There are two short scenes that were deleted from the theatrical release but included in a television broadcast. One speaks directly speaks to this. You might be able to find it on Youtube ( which I can’t access right now ). Both scenes occur in the daytime before the theatrical opening on the train platform.

In the first Cleon is on the beach/boardwalk talking to his girlfriend, who has a bad premonition about this upcoming meeting.

In the second Cleon addresses his handpicked crew and says something like “you have been chosen from over 100 members and affiliates for this mission”, then he names them and breaks down their duties. Swan is tagged as the #2, Fox is recon, Rembrandt is the designated tagger or some such and the rest are soldiers. I forget the exact number cited, but it is made clear the Warriors are a sizeable gang.

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Too late to edit:

Okay, 120+ according to this page, which has transcripts. Also more jobs that I remembered.

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It would be too embarrassing. IIRC, they wore Mets uniforms.

18

I so can’t wait for the remake.

hehheh.

19

Oh for heaven’s sake it’s a goofy 1970s fantasy. Analyzing it as a serious examination of NYC’s gang problem is as silly as looking to the X-men for realistic examples of genetic mutations.

20

The book is WORSE than the movie,

I shit you not.