Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. Rewind it. This is
Speaker 1: Rob Lamb.
Speaker 2: And this is Joe McCormick. And today we're bringing you
Speaker 2: an older episode of Weird House Cinema. This one originally
Speaker 2: published on August twenty third, twenty twenty four. It's our
Speaker 2: feature on the Warriors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this one's a lot of fun. I mean, this
Speaker 1: movie is a lot of fun. And I remember this
Speaker 1: one being a blast to talk about.
Speaker 3: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey you, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: This is Rob Lamb and this is Joe McCormick.
Speaker 1: And if you look at the various genres that we
Speaker 1: cover here on Weird House Cinema, obviously there's a lot
Speaker 1: of science fiction. There's a lot of horror, there's a
Speaker 1: lot of fantasy. But obviously weird films don't necessarily need
Speaker 1: space aliens or wizards or ghosts. Of our previous selections
Speaker 1: reflect this. Three of them released in the same year
Speaker 1: of nineteen sixty eight, Head, which you covered with Seth Danger,
Speaker 1: Diabolic and Black Lizard, so a musical adventure, and two
Speaker 1: stylized super criminal movies. A fourth nineteen sixty five faster.
Speaker 1: Pussycat Kill Kill is also a crime movie, basically in
Speaker 1: the exploitation genre, but it's also packed full of weirdness.
Speaker 1: And so we're back with a fifth selection today that
Speaker 1: contains no true speculative element. I mean, it's possibly set
Speaker 1: in the future, but if so, the very near future,
Speaker 1: it's you could make a case that this is an
Speaker 1: alternate reality. There's a certain amount of surreal substance going
Speaker 1: on with this film, but overall, yeah, no aliens, no wizards,
Speaker 1: no ghost It concerns criminals, and it certainly stands tall
Speaker 1: as a weird cult movie. It's Walter Hill's The Warriors
Speaker 1: from nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2: I don't know how you're saying that it contains no
Speaker 2: speculative element. And it has street gangs that are in
Speaker 2: baseball uniforms with face paint.
Speaker 1: I mean that could happen. There's nothing in this film
Speaker 1: that could not technically happen or have happened. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes all of these and it's not just visual
Speaker 1: choices that are strained. It's not like they had just
Speaker 1: like a straightforward street crime plot and then just decided
Speaker 1: to color up and gussie up the costumes there is
Speaker 1: we'll get into. There are other aspects of the warriors
Speaker 1: that make it stand out as well.
Speaker 2: That's true, But I think it is just straightforwardly fair
Speaker 2: to say that this movie is set in an alternate universe.
Speaker 2: The gangs of this movie are just much more theatrical
Speaker 2: and circus like than any gangs I'm aware of in reality,
Speaker 2: at least in the modern world.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And like, I always feel like this movie seems
Speaker 1: to occupy the same cinematic universe as the nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: three adaptation of the musical god Spell, you know, like
Speaker 1: it it doesn't feel like it is it is actually
Speaker 1: our reality. It's somewhere a little bit to the left,
Speaker 1: a little bit to the right, Spock in a goatee territory.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, another movie it kind of reminds me
Speaker 2: of in this regard is another Walter Hill movie, which
Speaker 2: is Streets of Fire, a film set that has an
Speaker 2: urban setting. It has mostly like it doesn't really have
Speaker 2: magic or like science fiction technology in it, but still
Speaker 2: it feels like a fantasy. It doesn't feel like the
Speaker 2: real world, and the gangs in it and the heroes
Speaker 2: in it are all just kind of mythical in a way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I know, I know what you're talking about. Like,
Speaker 1: similar things are often said about I don't know, Court
Speaker 1: McCarthy comes to mind. You know, so many of most
Speaker 1: of his books are not dealing with any kind of
Speaker 1: speculative elopment. They're like to the you know, the average eye,
Speaker 1: like straightforward Westerns, for example, but the way that he
Speaker 1: writes them and the way that he approaches them it
Speaker 1: ends up taking on all of these often overt mythical connotations.
Speaker 1: So anyway, yeah, The Warriors. I was drawn to this
Speaker 1: one in part, I think because I was like, maybe
Speaker 1: we need a palate cleanser. You know, we've been doing
Speaker 1: a lot of fantasy, a lot of sci fi. It's like,
Speaker 1: take it down a little bit. And also I realized
Speaker 1: we hadn't covered a seventies of film in several weeks,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, okay, we need something from the nineteen seventies.
Speaker 1: And then also, it's been rather hot recently. We were
Speaker 1: kind of back into a cool spell now, but it's
Speaker 1: been it's been kind of a hot summer of late,
Speaker 1: and this is a movie that always screams summer in
Speaker 1: the city. To me, it's just a very hot and
Speaker 1: sweaty film. Most of the characters seem like they have
Speaker 1: just been sweating for days, that patina of sweat on
Speaker 1: them and most of the scenes. It's a grungey seventies
Speaker 1: New York City film. And yeah, yeah, it's just as
Speaker 1: part of the vibe. It's just this is a good
Speaker 1: summer movie. In my opinion.
Speaker 2: I was quite surprised to hear you describe it as
Speaker 2: a cleanser in any way, because this film is de
Speaker 2: I did lye dirty.
Speaker 4: It needs a shower, it is.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It is also interesting in that I was kind
Speaker 1: of looking for a quick breather from a lot of
Speaker 1: the alien related content that I've been picking for Weird
Speaker 1: House and for other portions of the podcast stream, and
Speaker 1: of course this one ends up having a number of
Speaker 1: alien and aliens connections as well, which we'll get into now.
Speaker 1: It's interesting. I was reading a little bit about the
Speaker 1: production and the release so the Warriors of the movie
Speaker 1: about street gangs, and even though it deals with them
Speaker 1: in a manner that again feels very rather removed from reality,
Speaker 1: it's worth noting that street gangs were an issue during
Speaker 1: the filming and the release of the movie, so gangs
Speaker 1: obviously have been a real issue around the world throughout
Speaker 1: time and in urban and rural settings. So you know,
Speaker 1: the film would seem to be removed enough from reality
Speaker 1: to avoid controversy upon release, at least from our vantage point,
Speaker 1: because especially as the decades set in, I think it
Speaker 1: also takes on this additional air of otherness as we
Speaker 1: have not only like the weirdness applied to the different
Speaker 1: gangs in the way they're dressed, but also we're just
Speaker 1: further and further from from the late nineteen seventies. But yeah,
Speaker 1: at the time that they released it, apparently there were
Speaker 1: various controversies. There were like gangs allegedly fighting in the theaters,
Speaker 1: like the street gangs loved it. People who didn't like
Speaker 1: the street gangs were very critical of the movie for
Speaker 1: for highlighting street gang violence.
Speaker 2: The Warriors is going to make people join gangs?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean it was a real concern at the time.
Speaker 1: I was reading in the Psychotronic video. Guy Michael Weldon,
Speaker 1: who I believe at the time he wrote this was
Speaker 1: a New Yorker before he became a Georgian like me.
Speaker 1: He has a record store in Augusta now Psychotronic Records,
Speaker 1: so if anyone's on a road trip through Augusta, that's
Speaker 1: an interesting place to stop. But anyway, he pointed out
Speaker 1: that it got a lot of negative buzz on release
Speaker 1: that he qualifies as like good negative buzz, so like ultimately,
Speaker 1: you know, uplifted the film and I guess helped cement
Speaker 1: its cult status. And he does point out that this
Speaker 1: is not a film that is true to life regarding
Speaker 1: life in New York City, but he does point out
Speaker 1: accurately that it makes use of a lot of great
Speaker 1: New York City locations. I mean, this is definitely a
Speaker 1: movie filmed in New York and even if you're used
Speaker 1: to today's New York City, you feel at home in
Speaker 1: this film.
Speaker 2: I know what you mean. There is something about the
Speaker 2: use of New York locations in this movie. And I'm
Speaker 2: not even in New Yorker myself. I've only been there
Speaker 2: a few times. But something about it feels very familiar
Speaker 2: and cozy to see all these shots in and references
Speaker 2: to real places throughout New York, especially throughout the Bronx
Speaker 2: and Manhattan and then Coney Island at the beginning in
Speaker 2: the end, that it feels really cozy and familiar, and
Speaker 2: at the same time, the setting, like the plot context
Speaker 2: in which we encounter these locations is not at all familiar.
Speaker 2: It's hostile territory where our main characters are in extreme danger,
Speaker 2: but it just feels like it makes you want to
Speaker 2: settle in with a cup of tea or something.
Speaker 4: Do you know what I'm talking about?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Yeah, it is weird how a film that
Speaker 1: is you could, I guess roughly catalog in the sort
Speaker 1: of the hell city world, you know, you know, sort
Speaker 1: of like the post apocalyptic New York but without the apocalypse,
Speaker 1: or more of like a slow apocalypse, and yet it
Speaker 1: still feels like lovingly New York City in some strange way,
Speaker 1: even though most of the scenes are about you know,
Speaker 1: street gang members running from cops or karate kicking a cop,
Speaker 1: or fighting each other as they flee in and out
Speaker 1: of different subway stops.
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you're not familiar with the terminology we've used before,
Speaker 2: the hell city cliche in the movies is that it
Speaker 2: was especially common in movies of say the seventies through
Speaker 2: the nineties early nineties that would depict American cities, especially
Speaker 2: New York City. You know, it would take the worst
Speaker 2: components of urban poverty or decay or something, and then
Speaker 2: take it to an almost fantasy level, so you would
Speaker 2: have these cities depicted as places full of flaming garbage
Speaker 2: cans and trash blowing in the wind, and around every
Speaker 2: corner where there was somebody with a knife.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Escape from New York is in many ways like
Speaker 1: the prime example of this in which Manhattan has been
Speaker 1: depopulated of everything, but criminals and extra criminals have been
Speaker 1: added to establish a penal colony. So this movie doesn't
Speaker 1: inspire to that level of hell city.
Speaker 2: New York does still feel like lived in in this movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like we have. It doesn't go to great pains
Speaker 1: to establish this, but they did make sure that we
Speaker 1: have the various shots where we see bystanders who seem
Speaker 1: to be just normal folk. There is enough texture to
Speaker 1: remind us that this is a place where normal people live.
Speaker 1: This is just what happens in the contested street environment,
Speaker 1: particularly at night.
Speaker 2: Now, one thing that was new to me upon this
Speaker 2: revisit of The Warriors, because I'd seen the movie years ago,
Speaker 2: but I hadn't watched it in quite some time, so
Speaker 2: I never noticed this before. But coming back to it. Now,
Speaker 2: The Warriors is obviously based on a work of classical
Speaker 2: Greek literature, which is The Anibasis by Xenophon, and so
Speaker 2: I looked it up. And this is not just a
Speaker 2: cursory kind of illusion or you know, kind of a
Speaker 2: little bit of a match on the book on which
Speaker 2: The Warriors was based, called The Warriors by Saul Yurik
Speaker 2: was explicitly based on Xenophon, And apparently earlier cuts of
Speaker 2: the movie and some versions of the screenplay just say
Speaker 2: that this is the story told by Xenophon, but in
Speaker 2: the modern day. So what's the deal with the Anabasis?
Speaker 2: The Anibassis is the story of a company of ten
Speaker 2: thousand Greek mercenaries who are travel out to fight a
Speaker 2: war but become stranded in Mesopotamia. So they're fighting for
Speaker 2: a Persian prince, Cyrus, the younger. Cyrus tried to challenge
Speaker 2: his brother Arctic Serxes the second for the throne of
Speaker 2: the Achemenid Empire, but was killed in the campaign in
Speaker 2: four oh one BCE, sort of leaving his armies adrift.
Speaker 2: So the Anabasis narrates the ten thousand Greek warriors attempt
Speaker 2: to travel back from this far distant hostile territory in Mesopotamia,
Speaker 2: back to friendly lands, back to Greek cities along the
Speaker 2: sea in Asia Minor, and so they have to travel
Speaker 2: through Mesopotamia through Armenia through Asia Minor, having many fascinating
Speaker 2: and thrilling adventures along the way. And The Warriors follows
Speaker 2: this general shape by having the gang make a perilous
Speaker 2: journey back to home territory through strange lands full of
Speaker 2: hostile armies and relentless pursuers. But there are also more
Speaker 2: specific nods, like the fact that they are initially assembled
Speaker 2: in the park by a leader named Cyrus, the name
Speaker 2: of the Prince. The Persian Prince, and other characters in
Speaker 2: the movie also have the names of famous Greek heroes.
Speaker 2: There are characters named Ajax and Cleon and so forth.
Speaker 2: Another thing about The Warriors that feels very ancient Greek
Speaker 2: to me is its alien morality. It's a very interesting
Speaker 2: way to depict street gangs in storytelling. So the movie
Speaker 2: is decidedly told from the gangs and the gang member's
Speaker 2: point of view. It is not from the point of
Speaker 2: view of like an outsider interacting with the gang, or
Speaker 2: with a kind of sermonizing tone that you might get
Speaker 2: in some seventies movies that deal with gangs as like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is a kind of social blight. Look at the
Speaker 2: crime and the destruction. We are with the Warriors in
Speaker 2: the movie. We're on the ground level with them, and
Speaker 2: we're seeing things from their point of view. So they
Speaker 2: are structurally the protagonists of the story. And yet the
Speaker 2: Warriors are really not good guys. Other than placing them
Speaker 2: in a very unfair predicament where they're framed for a
Speaker 2: crime they didn't commit, there is little effort made to
Speaker 2: make them morally palatable or sympathetic. So the Warriors are
Speaker 2: not Robin Hood's band of merry men. They're not nice,
Speaker 2: they're not helpful or chivalrous. For the most part, they
Speaker 2: do not have a heart of gold. They are a tough, violent,
Speaker 2: self interested criminal gang, and some of the guys in
Speaker 2: the gang come off as overtly evil. For example, the
Speaker 2: character Ajax is portrayed as someone who just totally violent
Speaker 2: to the core, will commit rape or murder on a whim,
Speaker 2: and the rest of the gang, though mostly not as
Speaker 2: bad as Ajax, they're generally just threatening and rough with
Speaker 2: innocent people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even Rembrandt, the most innocent seeming member of the
Speaker 1: gang is just totally down to desecrate some tombstones. That's
Speaker 1: his role in the gang. He's the artist. He's the
Speaker 1: one that's supposed to, you know, throw up the tags
Speaker 1: and all. And then you know, other members of the
Speaker 1: gang casfully use homophobic or racist terms at times. And
Speaker 1: on one hand, you know, perhaps they're going for that
Speaker 1: sort of hard late seventies realism and so forth. But
Speaker 1: I think, certainly to contemporary viewers, this also serves to
Speaker 1: remind us the yeah, these are loudmouthed, troubled youth. Yes,
Speaker 1: some of the youth are thirty. They are not good guys.
Speaker 2: But I think it falls in with the style of
Speaker 2: characterization that was very popular in a lot of the
Speaker 2: great movies of the seventies, which often focused not on like,
Speaker 2: you know, sweet lovable characters, but on characters that were
Speaker 2: troubled and complex and interesting in the ways that they
Speaker 2: were very morally imperfect or flawed. And so the warriors
Speaker 2: are they're not Luke Skywalker and Princess Leah. You know,
Speaker 2: they're dangerous people in a dangerous situation.
Speaker 1: I like that you mentioned like nineteen fifties style street
Speaker 1: gangs films and social problem works of previous decades, because yeah,
Speaker 1: there's not a sense in this at all that there
Speaker 1: is another way for these characters. We don't really know
Speaker 1: anything about what their lives might consist, of, what their
Speaker 1: home lives are like, Like this is just like this
Speaker 1: is who they are. What else could they possibly be?
Speaker 1: And in fact, one thing I was struck by in
Speaker 1: this rewatch is that really, all the gang members there's
Speaker 1: not a sense that they have homes or belongings of
Speaker 1: any kind. There's no sense that the warriors themselves have
Speaker 1: anything in their pockets, like if they have pockets on
Speaker 1: those those tight fitting pants that most of them are wearing.
Speaker 1: You know, it's like their only possession is their identity
Speaker 1: as a warrior, and there's nothing else for them in
Speaker 1: the world at all.
Speaker 2: All they have is the perception they can create in
Speaker 2: others that they are tough and they shouldn't be messed with.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't even have weapons. They didn't be part
Speaker 1: of it is plotting like where they've gone. It's kind
Speaker 1: of like, I guess a weapon free zone or supposed
Speaker 1: to be. Nobody else seems to obey this rule, but
Speaker 1: like they didn't even come like strapped or whatever, so
Speaker 1: so they have to improvise their weapons and or use
Speaker 1: their fists and their kicks along the way, which you
Speaker 1: know ultimately makes it a scrappier movie too.
Speaker 2: Another thing I was noting is a similarity with Xenophon
Speaker 2: is of course, Xenophon is a journey from deep within
Speaker 2: the Persian Empire down to Mesopotamia back up to they're
Speaker 2: trying to reach the sea, the Greek friendly or Greek
Speaker 2: colony cities along the coast, and the journey of the
Speaker 2: warriors is much the same. They're starting up in the
Speaker 2: Bronx and they're ending they end up back by the sea.
Speaker 2: The return home is the return to the coastline at
Speaker 2: Coney Island.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, Like, isn't it like a rallying cry in
Speaker 1: the original work, like the Sea of the Sea, like
Speaker 1: the Sea?
Speaker 4: Yeah exactly, yes.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, my elevator pitch for this one is
Speaker 1: just street crime, but make it weird, and I think
Speaker 1: they succeeded in making it weird. Occasionally I'll hear talk
Speaker 1: of how they're looking to do a remake of this
Speaker 1: or do a TV series of it, And at one
Speaker 1: point I forget who was involved with. They were like, Yeah,
Speaker 1: this time though, we're gonna make all the street gangs
Speaker 1: super realistic. And I'm and I'm just instantly like like no, Like,
Speaker 1: that's not what makes the Warriors special. I can't imagine
Speaker 1: anyone wants that from the Warriors. If anything, make it weirder.
Speaker 1: I want to see gangs based on I don't know
Speaker 1: any s Jason Vorhez, you know things like that.
Speaker 2: Okay, in this one, we got a gang dressed up
Speaker 2: like baseball players. What if instead we get a gang
Speaker 2: that are all dressed up like baseball mascots?
Speaker 1: There you go, there, you go, Well, what would be.
Speaker 2: The best mascot? I know it's not baseball, but you
Speaker 2: could have a whole gang of gritty is. You could
Speaker 2: have a whole gang of wiffs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, gritty gang would work. I mean anything like, you know,
Speaker 1: we could Witch of the East. Everybody's stressed like the
Speaker 1: wicked Witch of the East. I mean, you name it.
Speaker 1: As long as it's like uniform and and strange, it works.
Speaker 1: Like not all the gangs and the Warriors are that strange,
Speaker 1: but enough of them are that it pushes the pushes
Speaker 1: us through the barrier into the salt dimension. All right,
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and listen to a little trailer audio.
Speaker 5: These are the armies of the night.
Speaker 6: Where you dig itre you dig the Furies, the Boppers,
Speaker 6: the High Hats, the Lizzies, the turnbul A Ses, the
Speaker 6: Gramercy Riffs.
Speaker 5: And these are the Warriors. We know about the Warriors.
Speaker 5: They're a heavy outfit. They're from Coney Island Warriors. You
Speaker 5: guys are the big dudes.
Speaker 6: Huh.
Speaker 5: Now they're in the Bronx.
Speaker 6: We're going back twenty seven miles behind enemy lines.
Speaker 5: It's the only choice we get.
Speaker 6: Between them and safety. Stand twenty thousand cups and one
Speaker 6: hundred thousand sworn enemies.
Speaker 5: I want them all. I want all the Warriors.
Speaker 7: They've got one way out, They've got one chance, They've
Speaker 7: got one night the Warriors.
Speaker 1: Okay, So if you are looking to jump out and
Speaker 1: watch or rewatch the Warriors for yourself before proceeding with
Speaker 1: the rest of this episode, uh yeah, ahead and do it.
Speaker 1: This movie is widely available again. Its cult status has
Speaker 1: been assured for many, many years. So there have been
Speaker 1: a number of nice editions that have come out, including
Speaker 1: the Arrow limited Blu Ray, which looks really nice. All right,
Speaker 1: let's get into the people who made this film, starting
Speaker 1: at the top. The director also screenplay credit is Walter
Speaker 1: Hill born nineteen forty two, a writer, director, and producer
Speaker 1: with writing credits going back to nineteen seventy two, with
Speaker 1: a couple of films that include the excellent Sam Peckinpack
Speaker 1: crime thriller The Getaway starring Steve McQueen. He began directing
Speaker 1: as well with nineteen seventy five's Hard Time starring Charles Bronson,
Speaker 1: and in nineteen seventy nine he got into producing with
Speaker 1: a little sci fi horror film called Alien, and he's
Speaker 1: remained a producer on every Alien film since, including the
Speaker 1: most recent Alien Romulus as part of Brandywine Productions.
Speaker 2: Now, Rob you might have read about this more recently
Speaker 2: than me, so correct me if I'm wrong about the
Speaker 2: process here. But from what I recall, the original script
Speaker 2: for Alien was by Dan O'Bannon, based on a story
Speaker 2: by Ronald Shusett or shuss It, and that was the
Speaker 2: first script by Obannon I think was pitched at a
Speaker 2: more B movie level. It was sort of supposed to
Speaker 2: be a smart but lower budget, scrappy movie made made
Speaker 2: by somebody in the Roger Korman Camp. But then somehow
Speaker 2: Walter Hill and David Geiler got their hands on it
Speaker 2: and did and they sort of had more ambitions for it.
Speaker 2: They were like, this is an interesting idea. We could
Speaker 2: make this into a bigger budget, more artful kind of movie,
Speaker 2: and so they took a pass at the script. Is
Speaker 2: that how you understand it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, that's my understanding. So you know, Hill and Geler,
Speaker 1: David Giler, who lived forty three through twenty twenty, they
Speaker 1: did what I think is ultimately an uncredited rewrite on
Speaker 1: the script, but you can find their rewrite on the script.
Speaker 1: You shared it with me prior to our recording, and
Speaker 1: we were both kind of looking through it and checking
Speaker 1: out what their particular take on it was and how
Speaker 1: it was written.
Speaker 2: We can come back to that in a minute, because
Speaker 2: I do want to talk about Walter Hill's screenwriting style now.
Speaker 1: Outside of the Alien franchise, they also produced the Tales
Speaker 1: from the Crypt TV series Demon Knight, the Tales from
Speaker 1: the Crypt movie that we previously covered on Weird House Cinema,
Speaker 1: and HBO's Deadwood. Walter Hill also scripted and directed three
Speaker 1: different episodes of Tales from the Crypt, including the disturbingly
Speaker 1: memorable Cutting Cards episode starring Lance Henrickson and Kevin Teege.
Speaker 1: His other directing credits include nineteen eighty one Southern Comfort,
Speaker 1: eighty two's forty eight Hours, eighty four Streets of Fire,
Speaker 1: which we already mentioned, eighty five's Brewsters Millions, eighty eight's
Speaker 1: Red Heat, ninety twoh Trespass, and his most recent directorial
Speaker 1: effort was a twenty twenty two Western title Dead for
Speaker 1: a Dollar.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Walter Hill did Red Heat.
Speaker 1: I didn't know.
Speaker 2: That's the one with Schwarzenegger, right, or he plays a
Speaker 2: Soviet cop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I vaguely remember seeing this one back when I
Speaker 1: was a kid.
Speaker 2: I've never seen the whole movie, but I've seen clips
Speaker 2: on YouTube. There is one where Schwarzenegger infamously like pours
Speaker 2: several pounds of cocaine out of someone's artificial leg.
Speaker 1: Yep Arnold and James Belushi quite as screenpairing.
Speaker 4: Wow, I can only imagine the chemistry. I'll have to
Speaker 4: watch that one someday.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I wanted to come back to Walter Hill's
Speaker 2: screenwriting style because occasionally I look up screenplays and read them,
Speaker 2: and you know, compare what's on the page to what's
Speaker 2: in the movie. And I have always found Walter Hill's
Speaker 2: style to be very interesting and something that I like
Speaker 2: a lot. So, just as one example, I'm going to
Speaker 2: read some descriptive passages from opening shots of his Alien
Speaker 2: screenplay with David Geiler. Interior engine room, empty cavernous interior
Speaker 2: engine cubicle, circular jammed with instruments, all of them, idle
Speaker 2: console chairs for two empty interior oily corridor, sea level
Speaker 2: long dark, empty, turbose, throbbing, no other movement. Interior bridge vacant,
Speaker 2: two space helmets resting on chairs. Electrical hum. Lights on
Speaker 2: the helmets begin to signal one another. Moments of silence.
Speaker 2: A yellow light goes on, data mind in the background,
Speaker 2: electronic hum. A green light goes on in front of
Speaker 2: one helmet, electronic pulsing sounds, A red light goes on
Speaker 2: in front of other helmet. An electronic conversation ensues, reaches
Speaker 2: a crescendo, then silence. The lights go off, save the yellow.
Speaker 2: So maybe that'll give you a kind of idea. But
Speaker 2: Walter Hill has a very terse, sparse, vertical screenwriting style,
Speaker 2: and it especially comes through in physically descriptive passages where
Speaker 2: he will sometimes describe a whole scene that he wants
Speaker 2: to show you visually in a few words, just like
Speaker 2: you know, a two word sentence on one line, return
Speaker 2: next line, a three word sentence period. He often leaves
Speaker 2: out the subject of the sentence in screenwriting if the
Speaker 2: subject is the same as the previous sentence. So it's
Speaker 2: just very tight writing that I think is extremely effective
Speaker 2: as screenwriting because I cannot help but picture the scene
Speaker 2: in my head when I read it. It just leaps
Speaker 2: right into the mind's eye. And especially having seen the
Speaker 2: movies that are made from these scripts, you can absolutely
Speaker 2: see exactly from these short descriptive passages on the page
Speaker 2: into what happened in the actual film.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and just reading through some of these examples, it
Speaker 1: feels like it flows on the page at the exact
Speaker 1: same pace as it will flow on the screen. You know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't get bogged down in a bunch of descriptions.
Speaker 2: You're right that it doesn't get bogged down in overly
Speaker 2: wordy description. But it is very descriptive. It's like very
Speaker 2: visually evocative. It just uses as few words as possible.
Speaker 2: And so anyway, I found the Warriors screenplay online as well,
Speaker 2: we'll come back to this because there are some funny
Speaker 2: things from it that we can talk about. It is
Speaker 2: very different from the final film, and I think there
Speaker 2: might be different cuts of the Warriors available. I watched
Speaker 2: the theatrical cut, so maybe some of the stuff in
Speaker 2: the screenplay that's not in the film is restored in
Speaker 2: the director's cut. But for example, the screenplay has a
Speaker 2: lot of stuff in the opening that we never get
Speaker 2: in the movie, scenes with the Warriors on their home
Speaker 2: turf in Coney Island before going off to the conclave
Speaker 2: and having their dangerous adventure. And I don't know, it's
Speaker 2: kind of interesting because I think these opening scenes really
Speaker 2: soften the Warriors characters and make them more relatable to
Speaker 2: see them at home first, just kind of being themselves
Speaker 2: before they're in danger and out of their element. And
Speaker 2: obviously we get a very little bit of that in
Speaker 2: the movie, but it's mostly just the scenes where they're
Speaker 2: being summoned and then they depart. So in the in
Speaker 2: the script we have them say there's like a scene
Speaker 2: where they're on the beach and Ajax, the character played
Speaker 2: by James Ramar, who will talk about in a minute,
Speaker 2: he's like working out on some exercise equipment, you know,
Speaker 2: showing off his muscles, being a total jerk to the
Speaker 2: other guys in the in the gang. And so for example,
Speaker 2: we get this description beach Ajax pumps twice on the bars,
Speaker 2: does a flying dismount, smiles wall Swan holding his knife,
Speaker 2: just looking at the blade, Coney Island, the sun visible
Speaker 2: over the amusement park, horizon line, and so again, very tight,
Speaker 2: very evocative description, very few words, but it conjures a
Speaker 2: strong feeling, and that feeling is eventually what's there on
Speaker 2: the screen in the movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this is This is interesting because because the
Speaker 1: actual films we'll discuss, it has a very tight funnel
Speaker 1: at the beginning. It really draws you in. Is highly
Speaker 1: highly effective. I wouldn't change anything. But at the same time, yeah,
Speaker 1: we don't really go into it with a sense of
Speaker 1: what normal life is like for these guys, or indeed
Speaker 1: what gang life consists of. And part of that also
Speaker 1: works very well with the structure of the plot and
Speaker 1: the sort of the mythic qualities of it, because you know,
Speaker 1: again they are essentially like ancient mercenaries in a strange world,
Speaker 1: and the less you know about what actual street level
Speaker 1: gang day to day consists of like maybe the better
Speaker 1: in this overall structure of the film.
Speaker 2: H But now is it the case that Hill also
Speaker 2: had a writing partner on this script?
Speaker 1: Yes. David Shaber, who lived ineteen twenty nine through nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety nine, American screenwriter and theater producer. His other screenplay
Speaker 1: credits include nineteen eighty one's Nighthawks, nineteen ninety's The Hunt
Speaker 1: for Red October, and ninety one's Flight of the Intruder.
Speaker 1: And then, as we already mentioned, this is all based
Speaker 1: on the novel by Saul Urick, who of nineteen twenty
Speaker 1: five through twenty thirteen American novelist who was apparently partially
Speaker 1: inspired not only by the classics, but partially inspired in
Speaker 1: writing this nineteen sixty five novel by the unrealistic romanticism
Speaker 1: of street gangs in West Side Story. I believe he
Speaker 1: had worked with troubled youth to some extent, and so
Speaker 1: he had a little insight into what the world consisted of,
Speaker 1: and he's like, it's not that glamorous, I'm going to
Speaker 1: write it. His other books include sixty eight's The Bag,
Speaker 1: seventy five's In Island Death, and nineteen eighty one's Richard A.
Speaker 1: The nineteen ninety nine film The Confession was an adaptation
Speaker 1: of his nineteen sixty six novel Fertig. All right, let's
Speaker 1: get into the cast here. So we may may not
Speaker 1: mention all the warriors, but a lot of them are
Speaker 1: played by actors who, you know, first time actors and
Speaker 1: maybe went on to great things, or maybe you know,
Speaker 1: ended up having a career shift pretty early on, but
Speaker 1: starting at the top. Really, our central character is Swan.
Speaker 1: Swan is played by Michael Beck. This is our handsome
Speaker 1: and ultimately ends up being the de facto warlord of
Speaker 1: the Warriors after some stuff goes down very early in
Speaker 1: the plot. His Beck's TV and film credits go back
Speaker 1: to nineteen seventy one, and apparently Hill discovered him for
Speaker 1: this film while they were scouting an actor by the
Speaker 1: name of Sigourney Weaver for a little science fiction film
Speaker 1: they were involved in. The movie they were looking at
Speaker 1: to scout Weaver was nineteen seventy eight mad Man, which
Speaker 1: also features Beck as well as f Marie Abraham. So
Speaker 1: Beck's subsequent credits included nineteen eighty Xanadu eighty two's Battle
Speaker 1: Truck and Mega Force, the nineteen eighty three TV movie
Speaker 1: The Last Ninja, the eighty five thriller Blackout, in various
Speaker 1: TV and film projects.
Speaker 2: Wow Xanadu, Megaforce, The Last Ninja. That is it is
Speaker 2: is The Warriors generally considered Beck's like peak peak performance.
Speaker 1: I think it might be. Yeah, I think this is
Speaker 1: this is the shining gem in his filmography. And I
Speaker 1: have to say, like, I think he he There was
Speaker 1: some criticism leveled at him for some of his performances
Speaker 1: in these, like you know, obviously probably not good action films,
Speaker 1: but I have to say, I think he's really good
Speaker 1: in this. I think, you know, he has a great look,
Speaker 1: but he also is able to to bring the appropriate
Speaker 1: presence as well. Like I have absolutely no problem with
Speaker 1: Michael Beck's performance in The Warriors. Does he look a
Speaker 1: little too old? Well, okay maybe, but I mean that
Speaker 1: that's also kind of like a hallmark of like troubled
Speaker 1: youth movies, So I mean even more likely to forgive
Speaker 1: it because you know, you know, thirty year old youths
Speaker 1: is a common occurrence in films such as these. All right,
Speaker 1: So that's Swan. One of the other key Warriors of
Speaker 1: note is Ajax who have already mentioned, played by James
Speaker 1: Ramar born nineteen fifty three. We recently mentioned him on
Speaker 1: the show before as well, because out of the one
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty plus roles he's played over his I
Speaker 1: think six decades of work, one of them is Lord
Speaker 1: Rayden from nineteen ninety seven's Mortal Kombat Annihilation. Who so
Speaker 1: this is the guy who's been in tons of stuff.
Speaker 1: The Warriors, however, was only his second film role, following
Speaker 1: his debut I think, just in a bit part the
Speaker 1: year before in the prison movie on the Yard. Prior
Speaker 1: to this, he'd done some stage work. He followed this
Speaker 1: up with roles in nineteen eighties Cruising the Long Riders
Speaker 1: forty eight Hours and nineteen eighty six's Clan of the
Speaker 1: Cave Bear. He's done a ton of TV and film
Speaker 1: work over the decades, often playing heavies and villains. He's
Speaker 1: been in everything from two thousand's Hell Raiser Inferno to
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three's Oppenheimer EV Viewers might know him best
Speaker 1: from Dexter What He played Dexter's dad on that Yeah
Speaker 1: So Yeah. Solid character actor. His stage work includes a
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy nine Broadway production of Bent alongside Richard Gear
Speaker 1: and Michael Gross.
Speaker 2: I just had to look up who he played in
Speaker 2: Oppenheimer because I forgot, But he played Henry Stimson, the
Speaker 2: Secretary of War under Truman.
Speaker 1: Is it a substantial role or kind of like a
Speaker 1: bit part.
Speaker 2: I think it must be a fairly short appearance, But
Speaker 2: I don't know. The cast of Oppenheimer is so huge
Speaker 2: it's easy to forget a lot of even quite familiar
Speaker 2: actors when they show up.
Speaker 1: James Ramar is one of those character actors who can
Speaker 1: be really good in very small doses or can have
Speaker 1: a more robust role in a picture. Like he just
Speaker 1: has a great look, a very like Stern appearance, especially
Speaker 1: you know as he aged and became this older actor, like,
Speaker 1: you know, you can put him in anywhere in a
Speaker 1: picture and he'll do well.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Now, interesting Aliens connection. This is one I hadn't I
Speaker 1: wasn't familiar with. He originally had the role of Hicks
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty six is Aliens. But I believe the
Speaker 1: story is that he ended up facing some drug charges
Speaker 1: in the UK at the time. I'm not sure what
Speaker 1: the full details on this were. It sounds like whatever
Speaker 1: the particulars of the situation were it got worked out.
Speaker 1: Things turned out out all right for James Ramar, but
Speaker 1: due to the time schedule for the shooting of Aliens,
Speaker 1: they had to pivot and cast someone else in the role.
Speaker 1: And that is one of the reasons that the Hicks
Speaker 1: in the movie. In some scenes especially, it looks like
Speaker 1: his armor is a little too big because he was
Speaker 1: cut size for him.
Speaker 2: It was sized for James Ramar. Oh that's funny. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I think I've read that. In some shots in Aliens,
Speaker 2: when you're looking at Hicks's back, it's still James Ramar
Speaker 2: in there, but they just didn't you know, it's him
Speaker 2: from behind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right, let's see who else do we have here. Oh,
Speaker 1: we mentioned that Swan becomes the de facto leader of
Speaker 1: the Warriors, but he's not the leader the beginning. The
Speaker 1: leader is Cleon played by Dorsey Wright born nineteen fifty seven.
Speaker 1: Not a ton of credits for this actor, but he
Speaker 1: was in Hair the same year and has done some
Speaker 1: assistant directing. Yeah, he is the initial leader of the Warriors,
Speaker 1: but he does not last very long. Then we have
Speaker 1: Snow played by Brian Tyler born nineteen fifty three, very
Speaker 1: few acting credits, said to I believe have moved on
Speaker 1: from acting to become a New York State trooper after
Speaker 1: this picture. But he's loyal soldier in the Warriors, all right.
Speaker 1: Next we have Coaches played by David Harris born nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty nine, actor and producer who went on to peer
Speaker 1: in a number of TV and film productions, including NYPD Blue,
Speaker 1: in which he played Officer Donnie Simons. So very deadly
Speaker 1: serious tone by Coachies here, he's often there's a lot
Speaker 1: of dialogue back and forth between the warriors is so
Speaker 1: they discuss what to do and what their objective should be.
Speaker 1: And he's generally a very serious, sort of middle of
Speaker 1: the road voice. Then we have this character Cowboy in
Speaker 1: the Warriors. His main thing is he wears a cowboy
Speaker 1: hat and he also wears a T shirt under his vest.
Speaker 1: Most of them are wearing just the vest and a
Speaker 1: patina of sweat. Yes, a Cowboy is played by Tom
Speaker 1: mcketderick born nineteen forty eight. This is his only film
Speaker 1: acting credit, but he went on to have a career,
Speaker 1: apparently as a photojournalist, and is currently a theater producer.
Speaker 1: Somewhere I read I have no idea if there's anything
Speaker 1: to this at all. They're also you know, you run
Speaker 1: a lot across a lot of facts about these films.
Speaker 1: But I saw somewhere it was mentioned. It's like, oh,
Speaker 1: they wanted Robert de Niro for this role, and I
Speaker 1: was thinking, really, you have a small role for him,
Speaker 1: a very small role, virtually unimportant. Like the only character
Speaker 1: attribute to this guy is again basically the cowboy hat.
Speaker 1: I heavily doubt that, but I don't know. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: the case. I mean, you can shoot for the stars,
Speaker 1: why not Brando?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, in nineteen seventy nine, Yeah, you know, de
Speaker 2: Niro would have been interesting a swan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, all right. We mentioned rim Brant already. He's the
Speaker 1: artist of the crew and also the most innocent seeming.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a boyish innocence to this character. Played
Speaker 1: by Marcelino Sanchez, who lived nineteen fifty seven through nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty six. This was the third film role for this actor.
Speaker 1: He went on to appear in Chips in seventy seven,
Speaker 1: forty eight Hours in eighty two, in Hill Street Blues
Speaker 1: in eighty one. Diet tragically young as a result of
Speaker 1: the AIDS epidemic. Now, if rim Brandt is there, I
Speaker 1: guess to show us like this ounce of innocence and
Speaker 1: youth that is still in the Warriors. The next character,
Speaker 1: Vermin is just there for laughs. Clearly Vermin is It's
Speaker 1: probably like the greenest feeling actor in the bunch, has
Speaker 1: some of the dorkiest lines, but is clearly there, leaning
Speaker 1: into this element of comic relief.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I can see that, yeah.
Speaker 1: Played by Terry Mikos, who was born in fifty three.
Speaker 1: I think this was his first screen credit, following some
Speaker 1: Broadway work, and I've read that he went on to
Speaker 1: get into TV journalism and later politics. I don't think
Speaker 1: as a politician, but it's sort of political infrastructure stuff,
Speaker 1: and then sometime as a pastor as well, I believe. Oh,
Speaker 1: and then we have a female character who is not
Speaker 1: a member of the Warriors, at least when we first
Speaker 1: encounter her, and that is Deborah van Valkenberg born nineteen
Speaker 1: fifty two. She plays Mercy. This was her first screen credit,
Speaker 1: followed by King of the Mountain in eighty one Streets
Speaker 1: of Fire in eighty four. A lot of TV and
Speaker 1: screenwork followed these pictures, including episodes of Monsters star Trek,
Speaker 1: Deep Space nine and more. But Joe, I was about
Speaker 1: to just go on to the next one. But then
Speaker 1: when we were conversing back and forth online, you mentioned
Speaker 1: another key credit, and that is Brain Smasher, A Love Story,
Speaker 1: written and directed by Albert Pyne, starring Andrew dice Clay
Speaker 1: and Terry Hatcher.
Speaker 2: I can't even begin to imagine what this movie is.
Speaker 2: It's an Andrew dice Clay movie where he fights Ninja's
Speaker 2: and it has Terry Hatcher and Debora van Valkenberg. Directed
Speaker 2: by the director of the nineteen ninety Captain America movie
Speaker 2: and various other B action movies from the eighties such
Speaker 2: as Cyborg starring Jean Claude van dam So. Brain Smasher
Speaker 2: A Love Story. Just ponder that. I'm not even saying
Speaker 2: you should necessarily see it, just consider it as an idea.
Speaker 2: But I want to come back to Debora van Valkenberg
Speaker 2: in The Warriors. I think she's the most interesting actor
Speaker 2: in the movie. A lot of the performances of the
Speaker 2: gang leaders are very good, but the kinds of characters
Speaker 2: that they are portraying are by nature emotionally constrained on screen,
Speaker 2: so they are guys who have to project a self
Speaker 2: image that's strong, tough, dangerous, and uncaring, and they rarely,
Speaker 2: if ever let this posture relax. So we see even
Speaker 2: in Swan, the leader of the protagonists of the story,
Speaker 2: he's often just he's a brick wall, and that's the
Speaker 2: way his character is supposed to be. He's not letting
Speaker 2: anything out and he's not letting anybody in. On the
Speaker 2: other hand, Van Wolkenberg's character is complicated and paradoxical. There
Speaker 2: are these interesting ways that she is both strong and weak.
Speaker 2: She comes off as tough, experienced, almost fearless, and scenes
Speaker 2: involving risk and physical danger, but in other scenes her
Speaker 2: character is powerless, vulnerable and even kind of adject, and
Speaker 2: scenes like the scenes later where she wants Swan's approval
Speaker 2: and affection and he is just totally cold and even
Speaker 2: emotionally cruel to her. And so she's very interesting. And
Speaker 2: the way she bonds with Swan over the course of
Speaker 2: the movie, especially leading up to an interesting wordless scene
Speaker 2: on the subway later on, is very good and I
Speaker 2: like her a lot.
Speaker 1: Yes, I absolutely agree, great presence, and again, like so
Speaker 1: many of these other characters, they are cold, They are.
Speaker 1: They're putting out this macho image and that's it's key
Speaker 1: to who they are. And in many ways, as far
Speaker 1: as the film is concerned, that's all they are. That's
Speaker 1: all that's going to ever be let out.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: They have this huge wall up and she is this
Speaker 1: character where we get to see a lot more, We
Speaker 1: get i guess, a wider sense of like what her
Speaker 1: hopes and dreams might be and who she is underneath
Speaker 1: all of this. All right, some other characters involved in
Speaker 1: the film. Here we have the character Cyrus, who will
Speaker 1: largely come back to This is the man who would
Speaker 1: be King of New York Street Gangs, played by Roger
Speaker 1: Hill no relation, who have nineteen forty nine through twenty fourteen.
Speaker 1: This is his most well known role, a small one,
Speaker 1: but undeniably iconic. And then we have the picture's villain
Speaker 1: is Luther, the leader of the rogues, played by David
Speaker 1: Patrick Kelly born nineteen fifty one. Just an undeniable chaos
Speaker 1: goblin in this picture. This was Kelly's first film and
Speaker 1: TV role, but he had a background in music and
Speaker 1: theater and apparently mime work under Marcel Marceau. I don't
Speaker 1: know how much we see like the mime influences in
Speaker 1: his performance. But I mean, I guess that's the thing
Speaker 1: about mime, like serious mime work, is that you can
Speaker 1: use it and apply it to like actual mime work,
Speaker 1: but you can also use it just to fuel, you know,
Speaker 1: a traditional performance.
Speaker 2: Interesting, they didn't cast him as the leader of the
Speaker 2: mimes guest, which yes is in the movie. One of
Speaker 2: the gang are mimes.
Speaker 1: We do not see anywhere near enough of the mime
Speaker 1: gang though, But anyway, Kelly has yet such delicious villain
Speaker 1: energy here that it should not come as a shock
Speaker 1: that he went on to be in tons of projects
Speaker 1: over the years, including forty eight Hours, nineteen eighty four's Dreamscape.
Speaker 1: He's the villain in that, as I recall nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: five's Commando. Do you remember who he played in Commando?
Speaker 2: He's one of the subordinate villains in Commando. He's like
Speaker 2: a schemy, weaseley guy who's working with the bad guys
Speaker 2: against Arnold Schwarzenegger and his family. And there's some quip
Speaker 2: where I think his character's name is Benny or something,
Speaker 2: and Arnold Schwarzenegger says to him like Benny, I'll kill
Speaker 2: you last and then not long after that, Schwarzenegger chases
Speaker 2: him down and is like dangling him off a cliff
Speaker 2: and says, when I said I'd kill you last I lied.
Speaker 1: Oh, yes, I remember. I don't remember his performance, but
Speaker 1: remember those lines for sure. Yeah. Kelly was also in
Speaker 1: nineteen nineties The Adventures of Ford Fairlane. Getting back into
Speaker 1: Andrew dice clay cinematic universe. He was in Twin Peaks,
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety two's Malcolm X ninety four is the Crow,
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen's John Wick It's twenty seven venteene sequel, and
Speaker 1: he also had a role on Secession.
Speaker 4: Oh who was he in Succession? I remember that he.
Speaker 1: Was he a therapist? I didn't. I've only watched like
Speaker 1: half of one episode of it. It looked really good,
Speaker 1: but I need to press on with Succession. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know who he played. For some reason, I'm
Speaker 1: thinking therapist is something I read, but that might be
Speaker 1: another movie where he plays a therapist.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't remember who he was in Succession. But
Speaker 2: I'm pretty sure in Twin Peaks, which you mentioned, isn't
Speaker 2: he the guy who shows up from France with Bagett
Speaker 2: and Brie for Audrey Horn's dad.
Speaker 1: I looked up some stills and I have one for you.
Speaker 1: Here he is eating some bread, so I guess that
Speaker 1: is correct.
Speaker 2: They're like he shows up with the food and they're
Speaker 2: in his office and they're going like, Brie.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So this is a great role. We'll get into
Speaker 1: a little bit of it later. But if you don't
Speaker 1: remember much else from the film, you might remember warriors
Speaker 1: come out to play a this is that guy. Let's
Speaker 1: see who else is in this while we have Mercedes
Speaker 1: Rule playing a character we'll come back to because I
Speaker 1: don't want to spoil anything. Born nineteen forty eight, Academy
Speaker 1: Award winning actress for her role in nineteen ninety two
Speaker 1: is the Fisher King. Her other credits include nineteen eighty eight,
Speaker 1: s Big and Married to the Mob, but this was
Speaker 1: only her second film credit. Now. Also of note Lynn
Speaker 1: thigpen is in this she lived nineteen forty eight through
Speaker 1: two thousand and three. Do we ever see her whole
Speaker 1: face or no her lips?
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 2: She plays the radio DJ in the movie, who plays
Speaker 2: an important role in the plot because somehow she is
Speaker 2: receiving information to coordinate all of the gangs who are
Speaker 2: trying to hunt down the Warriors. So I don't know
Speaker 2: why a radio DJ is sort of on the payroll
Speaker 2: of the Grammercy Riffs, but I guess she is. And
Speaker 2: she like cues up songs that are thematically appropriate, so
Speaker 2: she's like, hey, Warriors, if you're listening, and then puts
Speaker 2: on Nowhere to Run.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's a great way to incorporate the music.
Speaker 1: And I guess this is just part of the riffs
Speaker 1: like mass communication system, Like they're very organized and this
Speaker 1: is part of their organization.
Speaker 2: So like they communicate through commercial radio, which is great.
Speaker 2: But as soon as I heard her voice, I was like,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, I recognize her voice. Now she's actually
Speaker 2: done a lot of things, so I think I recognized
Speaker 2: her from multiple places. But I know the main thing
Speaker 2: because it took me to childhood. There was a childhood
Speaker 2: tie in for me, and I realized, like, oh, she's
Speaker 2: the chief on Where in the world is Carmen San
Speaker 2: Diego the geography trivia game show? I remember from when
Speaker 2: I was a kid. She's the chief who likes all right,
Speaker 2: gum shoes. You know, you got to chase Carmen San
Speaker 2: Diego to wherever she is. This time Uruguay or whatever.
Speaker 1: Oh, that's awesome. I don't think I ever watched Carmen
Speaker 1: san Diego, but just looking over her filmography as she's
Speaker 1: been in tons. She was in Godspell in seventy three.
Speaker 1: I think she was also in the stage adaptation, but
Speaker 1: she was having the original State version. But then she
Speaker 1: was also in the film adaptation, so that's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: But she's been in tons of stuff like Tootsie back
Speaker 1: in eighty two, you know, on up through far more
Speaker 1: I mean eighty nine's Lean on Me, and then far
Speaker 1: more recently towards the end of her career. You know,
Speaker 1: she was popping up on things like The District on TV.
Speaker 1: She's in The Bicentennial Man in nineteen ninety nine, so
Speaker 1: a load of credits here. You know, great voice obviously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And because she's just a voice, a voice going
Speaker 2: through the airwaves in the story, we'd never actually see
Speaker 2: her full face.
Speaker 4: It's just a tight shot.
Speaker 2: On her mouth while she's talking and saying kind of
Speaker 2: ominous things to the warriors. In fact, strange tie in
Speaker 2: she almost speaks the way Walter Hill writes screenplays. You know,
Speaker 2: it's very like short sentences with a period and then
Speaker 2: a pause.
Speaker 1: All right, Let's see what one last mentioned as far
Speaker 1: as the cast goes, because he's not even credited cast,
Speaker 1: but apparently future director Robert Townsend is in this as
Speaker 1: one of the Baseball Furies. That's one of the Baseball
Speaker 1: Gang members that we'll get to later. I didn't eyeball
Speaker 1: him personally, but he's supposedly in there. And let's see.
Speaker 1: I'm going to just mention in passing that Bobby Mannix
Speaker 1: has costume designer credit on this, and then Mary ellen
Speaker 1: Winston also uncredited for costume work, because again, the costumes
Speaker 1: for these gang members are so amazing, So the people
Speaker 1: who made this happen deserve to be called out. Oh yeah, Also,
Speaker 1: Anthony Pagan has fight choreography credit on this. This is
Speaker 1: a guy who I think his only other fight choreography
Speaker 1: credit in film or TV is ninety six is Vertical City.
Speaker 1: Tons of various credits and roles related to other projects.
Speaker 1: I think he had a background in stage combat I
Speaker 1: was able to uncover, but at any rate want to
Speaker 1: call him out because the action in Warriors is pretty wild.
Speaker 1: It's convinced sing like, it feels brutal, but also has
Speaker 1: that flare you know you're gonna see occasionally like the
Speaker 1: warriors will like grilla press somebody and throw them or
Speaker 1: backbody drops somebody through a bathroom stall door, that sort
Speaker 1: of thing.
Speaker 2: You know, This movie's mixture of gritty realism and fantasy
Speaker 2: really comes through in the violence, because sometimes the violence
Speaker 2: is shockingly hard, it's brutal and it hurts, and yet
Speaker 2: at other times, yeah, it's like it's like pro wrestling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so yeah, I like how it kind of goes
Speaker 1: back and forth there and then finally the music here.
Speaker 1: The score is by Barry Devorzen born nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 1: six time Grammy and one time Emmy Award winning composer.
Speaker 1: He was also nominated for an Oscar in seventy two
Speaker 1: for the track Blessed the Beasts and Children performed by
Speaker 1: the Carpenters for the movie of the same name. Other
Speaker 1: scores include seventy seven's Rolling Thunder, seventy eight's The Ninth Configuration,
Speaker 1: Xanadu eighty six is Nine of the Creeps, and nineteen
Speaker 1: nineties The Exorcist Part three.
Speaker 4: Wow.
Speaker 2: The same person did Xanadu and Night of the Creeps.
Speaker 1: A number of Xanadu connections here between this movie and
Speaker 1: then yeah, Night of the Creeps as well.
Speaker 2: Should we do Xanadu on Weird House.
Speaker 1: I've never seen it. I'm only familiar with it by reputation.
Speaker 1: I think my wife likes it as a cheesy flake,
Speaker 1: so I'd be open to looking at it.
Speaker 2: I've seen it, I remember it being a good time.
Speaker 1: Okay, But as far as the score goes, I love
Speaker 1: divores and score here. It's an absolute synth rock jam.
Speaker 1: I've heard it thrown into mixes before, and I think,
Speaker 1: along with the cult status of the film, this is
Speaker 1: a very well regarded score. Waxworks Records put This Baby
Speaker 1: out remastered on crimson and leather colored vinyl several years back,
Speaker 1: and of course you can stream it along with this
Speaker 1: with the soundtrack selections wherever you stream your music. But
Speaker 1: by and large, yeah, there's strong rock vibes to this picture.
Speaker 1: Synth rock for the score, and then a number of
Speaker 1: rock tracks as well, and it gets into some other
Speaker 1: territory as well, but very synth rock candy.
Speaker 2: All right, you want to talk about the plot, now,
Speaker 2: let's do it. So we're not going to do a
Speaker 2: detailed chronological plot recap this time, like we do in
Speaker 2: some cases. I think we should do a broad outline
Speaker 2: and then pause it places throughout the film to focus
Speaker 2: on things we want to talk about. But we'll set
Speaker 2: up the basic premise. The premise is that the Warriors
Speaker 2: are one of many gangs in New York City, specifically
Speaker 2: hailing from Coney Island in Brooklyn. And in this movie,
Speaker 2: all of the gangs have specific home turf defined as
Speaker 2: a neighborhood in New York, mostly in Brooklyn, Manhattan, and
Speaker 2: the Bronx, And they all have a specific gang costume,
Speaker 2: so not just colors or like a bandana or specific marker,
Speaker 2: but full costumes. So, as we've said, one gang is mimes,
Speaker 2: one gang is overalls, striped shirts and roller skates, one
Speaker 2: gang is baseball. The Warriors have comparatively normal looking outfits.
Speaker 2: They have leather vests with a large patch on the back,
Speaker 2: and this can be worn with or without a shirt underneath.
Speaker 1: Yeah, certain sort of like I don't know, like Native American,
Speaker 1: vaguely Native American tribal aspects to their guard but it's
Speaker 1: not overt. But they are all matching. They're very coordinated,
Speaker 1: so they have a solid look going on.
Speaker 2: At the outset of the story, a conclave of street
Speaker 2: gangs has been called by the most powerful crew in
Speaker 2: the city, the grammercy Riffs, and the charismatic leader of
Speaker 2: the Rifts, Cyrus, has asked every gang in New York
Speaker 2: to send a delegation of nine members to appear unarmed
Speaker 2: at a meeting in Van Cortland Park in the Bronx
Speaker 2: at midnight. What for, we don't know at first. They're
Speaker 2: going to find out when they get there. So if
Speaker 2: you're not super familiar with the geography of New York
Speaker 2: to put this together for the warriors, it's going to
Speaker 2: be a long trip. Coney Island is all the way
Speaker 2: at the south end of Brooklyn and the meeting place
Speaker 2: is way up north at the other end of the
Speaker 2: city in the Bronx. I did a Google Maps measurement
Speaker 2: and by road it's about thirty miles.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of city up there if
Speaker 1: you've ever had to jump around from one location to
Speaker 1: the next, so it's quite quite an odyssey. By the way,
Speaker 1: I'm sure folks have done like a warrior's pilgrimage where
Speaker 1: they start at Van Cortland Park and make the appropriate
Speaker 1: trip down through the boroughs and all the way out
Speaker 1: to Coney Island.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course, Coney Island is famous for the Coney Island. Oh,
Speaker 2: I don't actually know the name of it. The Coney
Speaker 2: Island amusement park that's on the shore with the Wonder Wheel. Yeah,
Speaker 2: the Wonder Wheel, big ferris wheel. And that's the opening
Speaker 2: shot of the movie, as we see the Wonder Wheel
Speaker 2: lit up at night with the neon lights as it
Speaker 2: goes around. And so the warriors are departing for the conclave,
Speaker 2: where all the delegations from all the major gangs in
Speaker 2: New York are gathered in a sort of outdoor amphitheater,
Speaker 2: and we see the different gangs heading out, getting onto
Speaker 2: the subway or walking down the streets in order to
Speaker 2: make it to the assembly. Now, one thing that was
Speaker 2: quite hilarious was that, apart from the gangs we actually
Speaker 2: meet and know of in the movie, in the Walter
Speaker 2: Hill screenplay, there was a list of all the gangs,
Speaker 2: and so Robb I pasted this list here for you
Speaker 2: to look at. There are many things we could call out,
Speaker 2: but I just wanted to mention so some of them
Speaker 2: have very normal sounding gang names.
Speaker 4: You know, they're called things like.
Speaker 2: The Alley Kats, or the Blackjacks or whatever. But then
Speaker 2: we also have here, are you ready, the Jesters, the Imps,
Speaker 2: the big Trains, the Dingoes, the go Hards, the magicians,
Speaker 2: the Terriers, the Queen's Bridge mutilators, the Xylophones, and the
Speaker 2: yo Yo's What is that? What is the initiation to
Speaker 2: get into the xylophones?
Speaker 1: Oh? Man, and that is their signature weapon, Like yeah,
Speaker 1: the design work on these.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, they've each got two mallets.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so many, you know, I want to know, like,
Speaker 1: who about the nickel steaks. What's their field?
Speaker 4: I don't know where that is?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the Shanghai Sultans, I mean, yeah, there's
Speaker 1: so many of them. Well, some of these, and of
Speaker 1: course we have some some very weird sounding ones that
Speaker 1: we see only a little bit, like sort of like
Speaker 1: you know, blink and you miss it. Like the moon
Speaker 1: Runners are in there, and they have this weird logo
Speaker 1: that you can look up online.
Speaker 2: It's the Moonpie logo stabbing a sword through its own stomach.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then there's a what is it? The is
Speaker 1: it of the Satan's Mothers?
Speaker 2: The Satan's Mothers. So they're like a motorcycle gang an
Speaker 2: Outlaw Motorcycle Group.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're the only gang that seems to be an
Speaker 1: MC and we don't really see much of them, but
Speaker 1: they're in there. They're in the movie.
Speaker 2: Also, this list has doubles in it because it includes
Speaker 2: both the grammercy Rifts and just the Rifts that those
Speaker 2: can't be different gangs.
Speaker 1: Mm or it was due to a rift in the Rifts, well,
Speaker 1: I guess the Winter organization that never comes up in
Speaker 1: the movie. But just a glimpse into the wider imagined
Speaker 1: world of all these various street gangs and they're various
Speaker 1: costuming choices, the yo yo's, and Cyrus is going to
Speaker 1: unite all of them. That's the revision.
Speaker 2: Here, that's the point. So we get to this conclave
Speaker 2: and Cyrus, the leader of the Grammar sy Riffs again
Speaker 2: the biggest, most powerful gang in the city, addresses the
Speaker 2: crowd to make a very interesting case. So instead of
Speaker 2: fighting against one another all the time, the gang should
Speaker 2: agree to a truce. And in fact, Cyrus lays out
Speaker 2: a logical case for this. I think the direct quote
Speaker 2: is can you count, suckers? He yells, can you count?
Speaker 2: The idea is the city is gang members together massively
Speaker 2: outnumber the city's police by more than two or three times.
Speaker 2: The only thing that holds them back is that they
Speaker 2: are not united, and they're fighting each other. But if
Speaker 2: they form an alliance together, the gangs can overpower the police,
Speaker 2: overpower everyone, and rule the city. And so he again
Speaker 2: he insists, can you count? He says, the future is
Speaker 2: ours if you can count.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like, he eludes to the fact too, that it's
Speaker 1: like even organized crime will bow before the might of
Speaker 1: their ascended power because they control the streets. And already
Speaker 1: he's achieved seemingly the impossible by getting a truce in
Speaker 1: place where all of these participating games have ceased fighting
Speaker 1: each other, at least for the time being. And if
Speaker 1: we can go the extra step and unite them under
Speaker 1: one charismatic ruler, under one highly organized gang's organizational system,
Speaker 1: then nothing can stop them. It'll be a new era,
Speaker 1: a new golden age of crime in New York City.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly so, Cyrus, I would say, is presented almost
Speaker 2: as a prophetic or christ like figure.
Speaker 4: Here.
Speaker 2: There is an aura of an aura of holiness to him,
Speaker 2: Except the kind of christ figure he is is one
Speaker 2: dedicated to a utopia of gang power.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And of course, the iconic line from all of
Speaker 1: this is that is he asked them if they can count,
Speaker 1: but he's also says can you dig it? Can you
Speaker 1: dig it? And they can dig it. Everyone can dig it.
Speaker 1: Everyone loves Cyrus and they are on board for this.
Speaker 2: Plan exactly right. The crowd likes what they are hearing,
Speaker 2: and they give Cyrus a very warm reception. But it
Speaker 2: is not to be. Nothing good can last, nothing gold
Speaker 2: can stay. Because while everyone is cheering and applauding and
Speaker 2: excited about the idea of a criminal conspiracy to overthrow
Speaker 2: the civil government and replace it with gang power, in
Speaker 2: the midst of all this euphoria, suddenly someone shoots Cyrus
Speaker 2: from the crowd and Cyrus falls down dead. Now we
Speaker 2: the audience get to see who did it. It was Luther,
Speaker 2: the leader of the rogues.
Speaker 4: The skin is.
Speaker 2: What's it David Patrick Kelly?
Speaker 4: Is that his name?
Speaker 1: Yep?
Speaker 2: Though most people in the crowd apparently have no idea
Speaker 2: who fired the shot, so the audience knows, but almost
Speaker 2: nobody in the scene knows. I'm kind of maybe we
Speaker 2: should do an aside on Luther here, because my read
Speaker 2: on Luther he's kind of hard to figure out. Luther,
Speaker 2: to me, does not seem stable enough to be a
Speaker 2: leader of anything, even a violent criminal enterprise. He is
Speaker 2: just as you said, He's like chaos goblin. He is
Speaker 2: a greasy, wide eyed, screaming ball of trouble and chaos.
Speaker 2: I don't know how anybody is following him, if that
Speaker 2: makes sense, Like you could imagine him just kind of
Speaker 2: acting on his own to cause chaos and destruction. But
Speaker 2: it's strange to me that he is portrayed as the
Speaker 2: leader of the rogues.
Speaker 1: I mean a similar issue with the Joker, especially as
Speaker 1: portrayed like by Heath Ledger. You know, great, great Joker,
Speaker 1: but you also have to wonder, like, why are people
Speaker 1: following this just obviously unhinged, chaotic individual. He just wants
Speaker 1: to burn a bunch of money and so forth. Like
Speaker 1: you know, Luther seems like a similar character. He just
Speaker 1: wants to watch the world burn, and I guess his
Speaker 1: entire crew is on board with that, but also takes
Speaker 1: orders from him. I don't know how you know your
Speaker 1: anarchist gang works in this respect.
Speaker 2: Well, maybe at the end of the movie they will
Speaker 2: explain a coherent reason why Luther did what he did so,
Speaker 2: but he So this is the twist, right, So Cyrus
Speaker 2: is shot at the same moment police arrive to break
Speaker 2: up the gathering and everybody begins to scatter. The Riffs
Speaker 2: surround their fallen leader and Cleon, the leader of the Warriors,
Speaker 2: who is portrayed as I think. Cleon is portrayed as
Speaker 2: a very smart, rational, level headed, uniting force, like he
Speaker 2: is what keeps the gang of the Warriors together and
Speaker 2: he is a strategic thinker. Did you get the same feeling.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we don't see much from him, but he
Speaker 1: seems to be well respected by everyone, even the ones
Speaker 1: that don't get along within the Warrior trinks. Right.
Speaker 2: So, but he goes up to see Cyrus's body. He
Speaker 2: approaches to see what's going on, while the rest of
Speaker 2: the Warriors start booking. They're they're getting out of there.
Speaker 2: But here here's another tragic moment. Looking I guess to
Speaker 2: cause more chaos and escape blame the murderer of Cyrus.
Speaker 2: Luther pipes up and starts screaming to the riffs. He says,
Speaker 2: the warriors did it, that warrior, I saw it. They
Speaker 2: killed Cyrus, and Cleon's standing there like what No, But
Speaker 2: Cleon is quickly surrounded by the Rifts and attacked, and
Speaker 2: I presume he has killed.
Speaker 1: I like the way that the Riffs come in on
Speaker 1: him and they begin using what I was thinking of
Speaker 1: as the elbow machine, like they're all kind of like
Speaker 1: pounding their elbows down in unison, which also reminded me,
Speaker 1: like it made me think of and maybe I'm overthinking
Speaker 1: this because I, you know, went into it expecting these
Speaker 1: you know, the the Greek saga to be underneath it all.
Speaker 1: But I was thinking of, like, you know, soldiers in
Speaker 1: a tight formation doing something in unison here.
Speaker 2: Oh interesting. That may not be exactly what they're going
Speaker 2: for here, but there absolutely are scenes in the movies
Speaker 2: where the gang members appear like in a phalanx, so
Speaker 2: you know they're in they're in an almost kind of
Speaker 2: classical formation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Riffs, especially, we get scenes later where they're
Speaker 1: all in formation. They're very stoic, very organized, in control.
Speaker 2: Now the scene is very scary and chaotic and effective,
Speaker 2: but it if I could issue one more criticism of it,
Speaker 2: it's the same thing with Luther I mentioned the second ago,
Speaker 2: like this obvious, like this guy's just shrieking and pointing
Speaker 2: at Cleon and there's nothing about Luther that suggests you
Speaker 2: should listen to or believe him, but they do.
Speaker 1: Or that he's tight with the Riffs at all. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: but they're like Luther said it, I believe it. That's
Speaker 1: all there is to it.
Speaker 4: Yep, yep.
Speaker 2: So meanwhile, the rest of the Warriors, now without their
Speaker 2: strategic and uniting leader figure, they don't understand what's going on.
Speaker 2: They're just running away from the park and through an
Speaker 2: adjoining graveyard as the police flood in. And so this
Speaker 2: provides the setup for the return journey, which will take
Speaker 2: up most of the rest of the movie. The setup
Speaker 2: is that stranded and leaderless, the remaining Warriors have to
Speaker 2: make it back home to Coney Island, traveling along the
Speaker 2: way through through the territory of all the rival gangs.
Speaker 2: And not only are they traveling through baseline unfriendly territory,
Speaker 2: which is their initial understanding. Unknown to them is the
Speaker 2: fact that they have been blamed for the death of Cyrus,
Speaker 2: and now the Rifts have a bounty on their heads.
Speaker 2: The Rifts enlist all of the other gangs within Cyrus's
Speaker 2: truce to bring them the Warriors dead or alive, so.
Speaker 1: They have to deal with every gang in the city
Speaker 1: plus the police as they try to make it back
Speaker 1: through New York City to get back to Coney Island,
Speaker 1: where they'll presumably be safe or have at least more
Speaker 1: resources for safety than they have anywhere else in the city.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Also just a note that Rembrandt literally tags a grave
Speaker 2: stone as they're leaving the cemetery in Big w On
Speaker 2: a headstone.
Speaker 1: Yep, that's his role, he's the artist.
Speaker 2: So let's mention a few of the encounters they have
Speaker 2: along the way. One of them is that they are
Speaker 2: trying to get on the train. They're trying to get
Speaker 2: on the elevated train in the Bronx to get back
Speaker 2: downtown so they can I think they need to change
Speaker 2: trains at Union Station to get back to Brooklyn. So
Speaker 2: they arrive at the train station, but then they want
Speaker 2: to get up on the platform, but blocking their way
Speaker 2: is a skinhead school bus from Hell. Now, I think
Speaker 2: maybe you understand the culture here better than I do.
Speaker 5: Rob.
Speaker 2: I think the turnbull Acs or the gang here, and
Speaker 2: they are skinheads, but not the kind of skinheads we
Speaker 2: usually think of today. There's no indication as far as
Speaker 2: I can tell, that they're actually Nazis. They're just like
Speaker 2: they've got shaved heads.
Speaker 1: That's what I was getting from it, because it seems
Speaker 1: to be a multi racial group. They have shaved heads,
Speaker 1: but they don't have any otherwise. They don't have any
Speaker 1: identifying iconography.
Speaker 2: They do have a bus that says dudes on the back, yep.
Speaker 2: And so there's a very tense scene where the Warriors
Speaker 2: are hiding in the shadows and they're trying to work
Speaker 2: out should we try to get up on the platform
Speaker 2: or not, And as the train is arriving, they make
Speaker 2: a break for it. The bus tries to run them down.
Speaker 2: The bus is just full of these creeps with these
Speaker 2: bats and stuff, and they're there. Actually we're not to
Speaker 2: the bats yet. They've just got clubs and chains and
Speaker 2: things and they're threatening the Warriors. But the Warriors just
Speaker 2: barely make it. They make it onto the train and
Speaker 2: the train leaves.
Speaker 1: Yeah. It's a great sequence, Yeah, very terrifying, well shot,
Speaker 1: very apocalyptic feeling.
Speaker 2: However it is they're not going to make it all
Speaker 2: the way back because there is a fire on the
Speaker 2: tracks and they have to disembark. So after this they're
Speaker 2: on foot yet again, forced back onto the ground and
Speaker 2: they have to make their way through an unfamiliar neighborhood,
Speaker 2: this time the neighborhood that is controlled by a gang
Speaker 2: called the Orphans, who were not at the meeting. They
Speaker 2: were not invited to the conclave in the Bronx, apparently
Speaker 2: because they are not well known or respected enough to
Speaker 2: even receive an invitation. So this scene I think is
Speaker 2: very interesting because as that the warriors are outnumbered by
Speaker 2: the Orphans, but the Orphans are clearly a There's a
Speaker 2: danger extending from the orphans low esteem among their peers
Speaker 2: and their low self esteem. So these the orphans are
Speaker 2: kind of unsure of themselves, unsure of where they fit
Speaker 2: into the hierarchy and maybe have something to prove, and
Speaker 2: I think all that uncertainty creates this extra sense of
Speaker 2: danger there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, like they're they're pretty low on the pecking order,
Speaker 1: but they have the numbers. This is their territory, so
Speaker 1: they have to they have to play it just right.
Speaker 1: They like Swan is telling everybody, it's like, no mouthing off,
Speaker 1: We're just gonna go through this without ruffling any fetters
Speaker 1: and we're going to be just fine. But we end
Speaker 1: up getting a lot of great tension, because this is
Speaker 1: where Mercy interjects self and just starts basically like stirring
Speaker 1: the whole situation up and telling the leader of the
Speaker 1: orphans here, who I didn't get the name of this actory,
Speaker 1: He wasn't in a ton of stuff, but we actually
Speaker 1: call Greco. I think, yeah, I believe that's it. He's
Speaker 1: great in this as the leader of the orphans because,
Speaker 1: like you know, clearly he has authority over them. He
Speaker 1: also is not really looking for some sort of a
Speaker 1: violent encounter, but if pushed, it's absolutely going to go
Speaker 1: that direction.
Speaker 4: That's right.
Speaker 2: You can tell he's afraid and he doesn't want to fight.
Speaker 2: But then Mercy pushes him, and his own gang starts
Speaker 2: kind of pushing him, and he feels like he can't
Speaker 2: lose his face, so he's got to escalate, and now
Speaker 2: everybody's escalating and and it ends up leading to a
Speaker 2: violent encounter where the warriors. Well, first Mercy follows them
Speaker 2: as they're making their way through the territory. Uh, she
Speaker 2: she sort of I think she wants one of their
Speaker 2: their gang insignia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was her whole thing. To the leader of
Speaker 1: the orphans, She's she's like, you can't just let them
Speaker 1: walk through. You've got to make them give up one
Speaker 1: of their vests. I want one of those vests. And
Speaker 1: that kind of begins the escalation right there, because Swan
Speaker 1: is like, now we're not doing that. We're marching through
Speaker 1: like soldiers through Avarnland.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So Mercy ends up following the warriors. She's kind
Speaker 2: of she's clearly interested in them and would probably rather
Speaker 2: follow them than stay with the Orphans. So Mercy ends
Speaker 2: up following the warriors through the territory. This leads to
Speaker 2: a scary confrontation where I think Ajax especially is treating
Speaker 2: her abusively and then threatening her with sexual violence. And
Speaker 2: then they have another confrontation with the with the Orphans,
Speaker 2: which is ultimately resolved because somebody throws a Molotov cocktail,
Speaker 2: which is a twist, and they end up having to
Speaker 2: run out of the territory and Mercy follows them and
Speaker 2: after this, shortly after this, they end up chased by
Speaker 2: the police and separated. So different parts of the gang
Speaker 2: are scattered in different directions. Uh, And there is one
Speaker 2: one member of the gang, is it the is it
Speaker 2: the scout Fox, the one who witnessed Luther as the
Speaker 2: murderer in the in the assembly who is killed in
Speaker 2: the subway station.
Speaker 1: Yeah, is this this in the altercation with the police. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like he gets thrown into the tracks.
Speaker 2: Fighting with a police officer and he gets thrown onto
Speaker 2: the tracks in front of a train.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a frightening sequence there. And then I
Speaker 1: believe what Swan and Mercy end up like jumping down
Speaker 1: onto the tracks and escaping through the subway tunnel.
Speaker 2: So that might be later because they I think they're
Speaker 2: separated from Mercy. But then Swan meets up again with
Speaker 2: Mercy later.
Speaker 1: Okay, there you go.
Speaker 2: But another one of the encounters along the way is
Speaker 2: the Baseball Furies. Uh, this is the baseball Gang. When
Speaker 2: the gang splits up, half of them encounter the Baseball
Speaker 2: Furies and it plays, Uh, these are the guys in
Speaker 2: full Like are the Yankees uniforms are just generic baseball
Speaker 2: uniform I don't know, their baseball uniforms with like war
Speaker 2: paint on their faces and they're carrying bats and when
Speaker 2: they meet them. This sounds funny and it is funny,
Speaker 2: but it's also actually a little bit scary, especially because
Speaker 2: of the music that sounds like the music from Dawn
Speaker 2: of the Dead.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Devorzone is really on point here. Great portion of
Speaker 1: the score.
Speaker 2: So half of the gang Swan, Ajax, Snow and Cowboy
Speaker 2: are chased by baseball and they're chased through the park
Speaker 2: and they're running for a while until ultimately they decide
Speaker 2: to stand and fight, and they fight the baseball guys
Speaker 2: and they win the brawl.
Speaker 1: Yeah, great sequence with lots of baseball sword fights that
Speaker 1: again are both goofy and terrifying, like it's very brutal
Speaker 1: fight that happens here. And yeah, the baseball Furies are
Speaker 1: just so delightfully weird, Like I just I look at them.
Speaker 1: We don't know much about them. We see them emerging
Speaker 1: from some sort of a basement, like ceremonially grabbing their
Speaker 1: their their baseball bats on the way out. But yeah,
Speaker 1: I just can't help but wonder, like what is their ideology,
Speaker 1: Like what are their sacred rights and observations? You know,
Speaker 1: they show us only a little bit and then our
Speaker 1: imagination fills in the rest and and they're to be
Speaker 1: clear a late film encounter. It's held up as a
Speaker 1: legit threat, like they're not just a novelty act, Like
Speaker 1: these are guys you don't want to mess with. But
Speaker 1: I'm like, what do they believe in? Like, do they
Speaker 1: have sacred rituals that involve Big League two? I want
Speaker 1: to know all about it.
Speaker 4: Let's see.
Speaker 2: So what happens after this? After the fight, Swan ends
Speaker 2: up meeting back up with Mercy somehow in the train
Speaker 2: station and they have to run away from police. So yeah,
Speaker 2: they run down into the tunnels ahead of the train
Speaker 2: and they're they don't get hit by the train, they're
Speaker 2: dodging it. But they're just traveling through the tunnels on foot.
Speaker 2: And Mercy clearly likes Swan, like she she is attracted
Speaker 2: to him, She's interested in him, she wants his approval
Speaker 2: and Swan, it's it's a fascinating dynamic here. Swan is
Speaker 2: just cold to her. He rebuffs her. He tells her
Speaker 2: that he sees her as promiscuous, he's mean to her.
Speaker 2: Underneath it all, he does seem to be interested in her.
Speaker 2: And so they sort of, you know, the kiss for
Speaker 2: a moment, but then he's like, no, basically, no time
Speaker 2: for loving tonight. We're back on the journey.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they spend a lot of time with this relationship,
Speaker 1: a relationship that in a lesser movie would probably be
Speaker 1: one of those like why are these two people in love? Like,
Speaker 1: you know, why of these two people attracted to each other?
Speaker 1: The screenplay in the direction here seems to, you know,
Speaker 1: recognize that that whatever is bringing these two characters together
Speaker 1: in this chaotic time, this chaotic setting, and at this
Speaker 1: chaotic point in both of their lives, like there needs
Speaker 1: to be something there, and the film does explore that
Speaker 1: and you see it come out in their performances. I
Speaker 1: think both of them, I think they have some great
Speaker 1: chemistry together playing these characters who are like clearly going
Speaker 1: through a very trying and traumatic situation.
Speaker 2: Now, maybe we should mention a few of the other
Speaker 2: things that recur as interludes, you know, little scenes we
Speaker 2: get throughout the runtime. We get a few scenes of
Speaker 2: the Riffs, like organizing and searching for the warriors. We
Speaker 2: get these scenes of them all these guys like standing
Speaker 2: at attention and in an abandoned building. They have a
Speaker 2: have an almost marine style call where they call out
Speaker 2: yeah right.
Speaker 1: H yeah, and we and the guy who has stepped
Speaker 1: in as leader of the Rifts. He has these really
Speaker 1: killer silver shades, so he has like Darth Vader energy
Speaker 1: if Darth Vader's whole thing was just having really cool sunglasses.
Speaker 2: Yes, of course, we get several scenes of Lynn Thigpin
Speaker 2: on the radio making announcements about places to hunt for
Speaker 2: the warriors and putting on me music that's thematically appropriate.
Speaker 2: We also get scenes with the rogues just running around
Speaker 2: and causing trouble, like they're driving a car that is
Speaker 2: sort of like a graffiti hearse and they just go
Speaker 2: up to I don't know vendors on the street and
Speaker 2: threaten them and cause trouble.
Speaker 1: Now, one thing we should mention is that Luther, I think,
Speaker 1: on two different occasions, calls in and checks with somebody.
Speaker 4: Yeah, what's going on there.
Speaker 2: I thought that what this was leading up to was
Speaker 2: that Luther it would be revealed because I didn't remember
Speaker 2: what would happen at the end. Yeah, same, I thought
Speaker 2: it would be revealed at the end that Luther was
Speaker 2: like checking in with someone who he was in a
Speaker 2: conspiracy with, like the second in command of the Riffs
Speaker 2: or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or perhaps the police even or organized crime or
Speaker 1: you know somebody like you know, he's somebody's stooge. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like he's somebody's you know, like hired an anarchist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he is on the phone with somebody, But who
Speaker 2: is it. Maybe it's revealed and I just missed, but
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's something that it's in the screenplay or
Speaker 1: some earlier version of the earlier cut or of the
Speaker 1: film or earlier script. Who knows. But yeah, we'll get
Speaker 1: to we'll get to the fallout in a bit. Oh.
Speaker 2: There's also a scene where after their encounter with the
Speaker 2: Baseball Furies, the Warriors are trying to leave the park
Speaker 2: and the Ajax decides to stay behind to sexually assault
Speaker 2: a woman in the park, but it turns out to
Speaker 2: be a police stakeout and he gets caught and arrested.
Speaker 4: So Ajax is out of the picture.
Speaker 1: Now, Yeah, this is the scene with Mercedes Rule and
Speaker 1: it's a really well done scene. It's a very uncomfortable
Speaker 1: scene to watch, and I guess we get what we
Speaker 1: want because Ajax is arrested and defeated. And Ajax is
Speaker 1: not a character I think we ever were really supposed
Speaker 1: to root for, Like he was the worst of the Warriors,
Speaker 1: So I assume I am vindicated him being relieved that
Speaker 1: he has been arrested.
Speaker 2: Yeah, though the movie doesn't really celebrate his capture in
Speaker 2: a way. It's just it's a very matter of fact, like,
Speaker 2: well they got Ajax.
Speaker 4: Now there he is.
Speaker 1: It's his character flaws that bring about his own downfall. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and we don't miss him. But I guess at the
Speaker 1: end of the day, it is another thing that has
Speaker 1: diminished the numbers of the warriors here, and the more
Speaker 1: diminished they are, the less likely they are to survive
Speaker 1: to reach their destination.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right. Now.
Speaker 2: Another one of the encounters is that again the gang
Speaker 2: has been separated. So three of the warriors, including Rembrandt,
Speaker 2: the sort of most sensitive, the nicest seeming of them,
Speaker 2: who was tagging the gravestone, they get invited to a
Speaker 2: party by some women they meet in the subway station
Speaker 2: at Union Square. This turns out to be the Lizzies,
Speaker 2: which are an all woman gang, and they're like having
Speaker 2: a party, and at first they make it like, oh,
Speaker 2: you know, come over, hang out, we can party. But
Speaker 2: of course this turns into an ambush where they are
Speaker 2: also trying to kill the warriors on the order of
Speaker 2: the Riffs. So the guys here get ambushed and nearly killed,
Speaker 2: but they escape.
Speaker 1: Both the Lizzies and the female undercover cop. They seem
Speaker 1: to occupy the space of a mythic siren or a
Speaker 1: Circe like feminine threat to our warriors as they think
Speaker 1: their journey across this enemy territory.
Speaker 2: Now, eventually the warriors are all reunited. I think this
Speaker 2: is still in the Union Union Squares station. I don't
Speaker 2: know if I'm saying that right, the Union station or
Speaker 2: Union Square station, and in along this area they have
Speaker 2: to fight another gang that is pursuing them.
Speaker 4: This is the Punks.
Speaker 2: Overall's striped shirt, butt cut on the hair, and roller
Speaker 2: skates yep.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and one of them is super tall. I couldn't
Speaker 1: help but notice that there is one really tall like
Speaker 1: blonde guy in the group. All these gangs, even the
Speaker 1: goofy ones, come off as legitimately intimidating within the context
Speaker 1: of the film.
Speaker 2: Much like with The Baseball Furies. The costumes are funny
Speaker 2: and so it necessarily is funny at one level, but
Speaker 2: the staging in the cinematography is actually quite intimidating and scary.
Speaker 2: That yeah, like the way that the one of the punks,
Speaker 2: like the scout of the Punks, is just slazily following
Speaker 2: them through the subway station on roller skates, kind of
Speaker 2: weaving back and forth. The fact that he's on roller
Speaker 2: skates is funny, but it's framed in such a way
Speaker 2: that it actually does work. It's very threatening.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, And of course this leads to this
Speaker 1: huge fight in a subway station bathroom. I don't think
Speaker 1: I've ever been in a subway station bathroom this big.
Speaker 1: But I can't be this big by way. It looks
Speaker 1: like a legit location, So maybe they downsize them after this,
Speaker 1: They're like, we can't have this, you can't. We can't
Speaker 1: have bathrooms that are this spacious and susceptible to gang warfare.
Speaker 1: So we got to downsize them. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: they have a robust battle in here. This is one
Speaker 1: with backdrops through a stall door, a lot of cool
Speaker 1: fi choreography, and just feels like an equal mix of
Speaker 1: unrealistic and maybe even a little you know, fun, but
Speaker 1: also brutal and also high stakes.
Speaker 2: The warriors stage and ambush by they go into the
Speaker 2: bathroom and they know the punks are going to follow them,
Speaker 2: and they all go into the stalls and then the
Speaker 2: punks like go in and the warriors all burst out
Speaker 2: of the stalls at the same time to attack, and
Speaker 2: I'm like, I don't know if that gives you any
Speaker 2: advantage at all.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but it works. They seem to know what they're doing.
Speaker 1: They defeat the punks, and it's time to move on
Speaker 1: towards their destination.
Speaker 2: Also in this scene, I think Mercy proves herself to
Speaker 2: Swan in a way the way that she sticks with
Speaker 2: the gang and holds her own and she's sort of
Speaker 2: showing and emerging loyalty and dependability to her newfound friends.
Speaker 2: And so I think there's whereas Swan was cruel to
Speaker 2: her emotionally cruel to her in the scene before, something
Speaker 2: is kind of different with them after this when they're
Speaker 2: on the subway together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and this this next subway scene really stood out
Speaker 1: to me on this viewing of the picture. So, you know,
Speaker 1: it's pretty late in the film at this point. The
Speaker 1: remains of the warriors here are all on the train.
Speaker 1: They're exhausted, they're beat up. You know, they got cuts
Speaker 1: and scratches and bruises from this most recent battle and
Speaker 1: all the previous battles. So you know, they're just hanging
Speaker 1: on by a thread. They're on the train some of
Speaker 1: them are I think like Rembrandts, like laying down on
Speaker 1: the seats like he's just fallen asleep. But the Swan
Speaker 1: is conscious, Mercy's conscious setting up. And then we see
Speaker 1: a few civilians on the train, but then four youth
Speaker 1: board the train, and these are not gang members. Given
Speaker 1: their dress, we're to assume they're rich kids coming home
Speaker 1: from a night on the town. And they PLoP down
Speaker 1: opposite Swan and Mercy, and we get this long and
Speaker 1: fascinating I guess, ultimately kind of a stare down between
Speaker 1: the warriors and these rich kids. And it's it was
Speaker 1: just it's just nic. It's like drawn out. It's minimalist
Speaker 1: and really impressive. I think another film might have played
Speaker 1: this for a quick laugh, or escalated it to some
Speaker 1: form of physical confrontation, or indulged it with a lot
Speaker 1: of dialogue. But instead there's no dialogue in this sequence. Instead,
Speaker 1: he'll give this this what ends up being an intense
Speaker 1: stare down from Swan, and he nonverbally stresses that Mercy
Speaker 1: shouldn't flinch either, like she tries to sort of awkwardly
Speaker 1: look away and touch your hair, and he like nudges her,
Speaker 1: you know, and it's like, no, like, don't flinch. You've
Speaker 1: got to You've got to stare them down. You've got
Speaker 1: to like remain strong to who you are, and eventually
Speaker 1: they will be the ones to flinch.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly right. So yeah, I was wondering, what's what's
Speaker 2: gonna happen here? Is there going to be a fight,
Speaker 2: But no, instead they just sit there and Swan it's
Speaker 2: his sort of his first real show of tenderness to
Speaker 2: Mercy that he's like asking her to be a brick
Speaker 2: wall with him. Yeah, and so they are a brick
Speaker 2: wall together now, and the kids who look like they
Speaker 2: just came from prom or something, all dressed up in
Speaker 2: tuxedos and fancy dresses. They eventually they get creeped out
Speaker 2: and they get off the train at the next stop.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So just a really powerful scene and I think
Speaker 1: just great acting from Beck and Van Valkenberg here. So yeah,
Speaker 1: it was really impressed with this secret This is one
Speaker 1: that I did not remember from my initial dealing in
Speaker 1: the film many years ago.
Speaker 2: But it's great, I agree, Yeah, very strong. But there's
Speaker 2: still a final fight left to be had.
Speaker 1: Yep.
Speaker 2: So the warriors, the Warriors and Mercy do arrive back
Speaker 2: home in Coney Island, dawn is breaking, it's morning now,
Speaker 2: and as they go on to the beach, we start
Speaker 2: to hear a sound, a clinking sound, a rhythmic clinking
Speaker 2: of glass against glass, and it's coming from a car.
Speaker 2: Oh no, it is that tombstone hearst that we've seen
Speaker 2: rolling around with the rogues in it all day. And
Speaker 2: this is a famous moment from the movie where David
Speaker 2: Patrick Kelly Luther, the leader of the rogues, is clink.
Speaker 2: He has glass bottles on three of his fingers and
Speaker 2: he is rhythmically clinking them together like a drum, and
Speaker 2: he says, warriors come out to play, over and over.
Speaker 2: Very creepy. It's iconic for a reason. I don't know
Speaker 2: who had the idea of him to clink the bottles
Speaker 2: like that, but it's brilliant.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I've read that it's kind of a
Speaker 1: Kelly brought a lot to this, like basing it on
Speaker 1: some characters he'd encountered in life before. But yeah, through
Speaker 1: some combination of performer and writer and director, yeah, we
Speaker 1: get this just super iconic and creepy sequence.
Speaker 2: So the warriors quickly arm themselves with pipes, and scraps
Speaker 2: of wood and stuff they find under a I think
Speaker 2: under a set of bleachers out on the beach, and
Speaker 2: they go out onto the sand and the rogues pursue them,
Speaker 2: and the two gangs come face to face on the
Speaker 2: beach as dawn is breaking, and they ask Luther why
Speaker 2: he killed Cyrus and he says, quote, no reason.
Speaker 1: I just like doing things like that. Oh man, it's
Speaker 1: a real head scratcher. Yeah.
Speaker 2: I thought we were going to get an explanation from
Speaker 2: like who he was on the phone with and so forth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, because on one level, it seems like
Speaker 1: Luther would be the sort to gloat at this point
Speaker 1: about his powerful connections to certainly to some other gang
Speaker 1: or organized crime. But he doesn't. He's just like, nope,
Speaker 1: I just like cause and trouble and that's what I did.
Speaker 1: This is who I am.
Speaker 2: So it seems that Luther and Swan are setting up
Speaker 2: for a duel, but it's not going to be a
Speaker 2: fair one because Luther has a gun and Swan does not.
Speaker 2: But Swan does have a switchblade knife, and so it's
Speaker 2: actually it just came up on the show recently, that
Speaker 2: scene in The Magnificent Seven where James Coburn has a
Speaker 2: knife and the other guy has a gun, and there,
Speaker 2: you know, he brings a knife to a gunfight and
Speaker 2: he wins. The same thing happens here, actually, except Swan
Speaker 2: does not kill Luther. Swan throws the knife into Luther's
Speaker 2: hand and makes him drop the gun, and then right
Speaker 2: then the Riffs arrive. They apparently know the truth because
Speaker 2: a biker I think one of the Satan's mothers maybe
Speaker 2: showed up and told them that, hey, it was not
Speaker 2: the Warriors, it was Luther who shot Cyrus. So now
Speaker 2: that they know the truth, they tell the warriors were cool.
Speaker 2: You guys are good. But they surround Luther and the rogues.
Speaker 2: We don't see what happens, but it's presumably to kill them,
Speaker 2: and Luther is whining and protesting the whole time. He
Speaker 2: keeps saying, no, it was the warriors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this would be another moment where if Luther could
Speaker 1: roll on anybody, it seems like he would have, even
Speaker 1: if it was the police, Like this would be the
Speaker 1: time to be like, let me tell you about the
Speaker 1: person that I was talking on the phone with. They
Speaker 1: set all this up, but it doesn't happen, So maybe
Speaker 1: there was nothing to it. Maybe really just did this
Speaker 1: because he likes chaos and it's just who he is. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but yeah, I presumably they kill him. They're probably not
Speaker 1: gonna let him off with a string warning.
Speaker 2: So we watched the Warriors and Mercy I guess. I
Speaker 2: guess Mercy is kind of part of the Warriors now
Speaker 2: in a way. They make their way happily down the
Speaker 2: beach and then we get autro music. Oh my lord,
Speaker 2: I was laughing at the Joe Walsh that comes in here.
Speaker 2: It's amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the track in the City, co written
Speaker 1: by Divorce and later re recorded by the Eagles, So yeah,
Speaker 1: strong Eagles vibe. I think in the City is a
Speaker 1: great track. I've heard it many times before, you know.
Speaker 1: But I guess watching the movie here, it does feel
Speaker 1: from our modern perspective as being awfully yacht rocky. For
Speaker 1: the sequence we're greeted with here, it is.
Speaker 2: A weird fit for the Warriors. It's like, can you
Speaker 2: imagine if they'd played life in the fast Lane and
Speaker 2: the scene where the turnbull Acs are trying to run
Speaker 2: them down with the hell bus?
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, So I don't know. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: it's iconic. It's here, it's part of the Warriors. You
Speaker 1: can't take it away, but it's it's an interesting.
Speaker 4: Choice, sure to make you lose your mind.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, there you have it. The Warriors a classic.
Speaker 1: We didn't even mention this, but there's like, it's interesting
Speaker 1: because we have like the Warriors cannon, you know, what
Speaker 1: we see in the film, like the gangs that are
Speaker 1: presented or mentioned in the film. And then there are
Speaker 1: the gangs that are mentioned in the screenplay that didn't
Speaker 1: make it into the picture. And then there is this
Speaker 1: added layer that I don't know much about, but I
Speaker 1: know that Rockstar Games came along at some point much
Speaker 1: later on and made a Warrior's video game, brought back
Speaker 1: a number of the actors from the picture, and I
Speaker 1: don't know to what extent they expanded the universe of
Speaker 1: the Warriors or brought in, like you know, expanded different gangs,
Speaker 1: or brought in any of the gangs from the screenplay.
Speaker 1: But I know, just from searching around for Warriors information,
Speaker 1: I kept running across stuff tied to this game.
Speaker 2: Warriors video game made in two thousand and five.
Speaker 4: That is so strange.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was I don't think this was the time
Speaker 1: in which I was playing a lot of video games,
Speaker 1: so I don't have any experience with this one. So
Speaker 1: if there any big time Warrior fans out there, or
Speaker 1: just folks who played this video game, perhaps you can
Speaker 1: ride in and let us know what it consisted of
Speaker 1: and how it matches up with the film.
Speaker 2: Can you think of another example where in the two
Speaker 2: thousands there was a video game adaptation of a movie
Speaker 2: from the seventies.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm assuming there was some sort of an
Speaker 1: alien game, but most of those would have probably been
Speaker 1: more based on aliens as opposed to alien.
Speaker 2: Yeah, anyway, it'd be interesting to hear about. Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 2: that's all the Warriors I got in me for today.
Speaker 1: All Right, we'll go and close this one up. But yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll just remind everyone that Stuffed to Blew Your Mind
Speaker 1: is primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes
Speaker 1: on Tuesdays and Thursdays, short form episode on Wednesdays, and
Speaker 1: then on Fridays, we set aside most serious concerns to
Speaker 1: just talk about a weird film on Weird House Cinema.
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Speaker 1: movies we've covered so far, and sometimes there's a peek
Speaker 1: ahead at what's coming out next Huge things.
Speaker 2: As always to our excellent audio producer Jjposway. If you
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