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