Editor’s Note: City folks love movies, right? But how about movies that make the big city seem like a scary place? Well, Freeline Media critic Mike Fried is a bag fan of a 1979 movie that showed New York City to be one violent hellhole — sounds fun! Read on!

THE WARRIORS 

4.5/5

Is it just me or does the scene in the opening credits (where one of the gangs going to the gang meeting with Cyrus uses subway tokens to get on the subway) just belie the whole notion of lawlessness that permeates the rest of film?

Can you dig it?

At the aforesaid meeting, a guy named Luther kills Cyrus and pins it on The Warriors. Now the Warriors have to make it from the Bronx back to their home turf of Coney Island while all of the other gangs have called off the truce and are looking to get their heads. And as gang member Vermin says, “Fucking Coney Island must be 50 to 100 miles from here!”

This was a polarizing film when it was first released. The original poster featured the words “These are the armies of the night. They are 100,000 strong. They outnumber the cops five to one. They could run New York City.” This upset and outraged many people; some tried to have the film banned.

Now it’s a cult classic, despite Paramount Pictures being total pussy bitches and pulling the marketing on this film and pulling it from some theaters because of the negative reaction. 

And for all you folks who are keen on old Greek Literature these days because of The Odyssey, you should know that this movie is loosely based on Xenophon’s Anabasis which details the account of a group of Greek mercenaries hired by a guy named Cyrus who get stuck deep in Persian territory after Cyrus is killed. 

The movie launched a couple of careers, most notably Deborah Van Valkenburgh (Too Close for Comfort) Lynne Thigpen (a lot of shit), Mercedes Ruehl (a lot of shit and an Oscar winner) and The great James Remar. 

But no one is the heart and soul of this midnight movie than David Patrick Kelly, who improvised Luther’s immortal line “Waaaarrrrrriiiorsss, come out to pla-ay-ay!” which was included among the 400 official nominees for the American Film Institute’s prestigious AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes list, although it didn’t make the cut for the top 100. 

Interestingly, Kelly was hired by director Walter Hill, who cast him a few years later in 48 Hrs. to play a guy named — you guess it — Luther. 

Ingeniously, the cinematographer Andrew Laszlo lobbied to have a rainstorm early on in the film which then gave him the ability to wet down the streets; those wet streets at night added a tremendous look to the film. 

It’s a 93 minute film that pulses with energy in every single frame. 

Also the 1978 Yankees play their gangland counterparts. Don’t believe me? That’s why they were called “The Bronx Zoo.” 

It’s Good News Boppers. 

WATCH IT!

4.5/5

Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.

Contact Mike at moviemike3@gmail.com