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