The Outsiders ***** (1983, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, C Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon) – Classic Movie Review 1519

In 1983, director Francis Ford Coppola conjures up a dream cast for his first of his two adaptations of an S E Hinton classic novel about youth. It is set in 1966 and follows the disturbed, fractured and violent young lives of a group of teenagers in a divided Oklahoma town. These troubled characters are memorably played by Emilio Estevez (as Two-Bit Matthews), Rob Lowe (as Sodapop Curtis), C Thomas Howell, Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, Patrick Swayze, Tom Cruise, Diane Lane and Leif Garrett.

The vicious, wealthy South Zone gang called The Socials (‘Socs’) attack Johnny Cade (Macchio) and Ponyboy Curtis (Howell) from the poor North Zone gang called The Greasers. Johnny stabs and kills one of the attackers, saving Ponyboy from being drowned in a fountain. Dallas Winston (Dillon) finds a hideout for them in a nearby town but a week later, they decide to return and show the death was self defence. The Socs and The Greasers prepare to fight.

Coppola’s youth-oriented melodrama with a moral very consciously recalls Rebel Without a Cause, and West Side Story too. Coppola films it in the grandest vintage Hollywood fashion, both stylish and stylised. Cinematographer Stephen H Burum shoots in glorious-looking, gorgeous Technicolor and Carmine Coppola provides a dynamic, driving music score. Screenwriter Katherine Knutsen Rowell makes an excellent job of adapting the Hinton novel.

This total tour-de-force is a brilliant chamber work by the director of the Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now. Coppola’s next film was an adaptation of another Hinton novel, Rumble Fish, also with Dillon and Lane.

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© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 1519

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Rob Lowe as Sodapop Curtis.