When people who grew up in the 70's are asked what their favorite movie from that time period was and/or is, most quickly shout out common choices like "Star Wars" or "Grease." Some may even mention "Jaws", "Saturday Night Fever", "Rocky", or "The Rocky (no relation) Horror Picture Show." On many levels I would agree as I enjoy most of those flicks as well as other huge 70's cinema faves like "Young Frankenstein", "A Clockwork Orange" and even "Taxi Driver." But for me there's only one movie that deserves the top 70's movie spot in my heart - 1979 New York gang cult classic "The Warriors."
Originally released in 1979, this Walter Hill directed film didn't make its way to the Army movie theater where we were stationed in Hoechst, Germany (right outside of Frankfurt) until 1980. Myself and the rest of the couple handful of teenagers residing in the housing area could barely contain ourselves waiting for the day of the first showing. To this day I don't remember how we even knew about the movie or even if we had a clue what to expect. I would imagine that we either a) saw a "coming attractions" poster at the theater, b) saw it during previews before another movie, or c) both, and just thought it looked cool.
Needless to say, the day it was due to premiere on our little base theater, every one of us kids made sure not to make other plans or get roped into something else by our parents. To have to hear secondhand about the movie would be a travesty. The plan was to remain extremely quiet during the week leading up to the event so as to not do anything to get detained by the parental units. To be the kid that missed the first showing because of restriction or even because a parent deemed it inappropriate for youthful consumption would surely bring massive amounts of ridicule in the weeks to come.
Wouldn't it be just my luck that I'd be THAT kid.
As the story goes, one of our friends, Shawn, got into it with his younger sister who in turn explained to their parents what the movie was about. Well it just so happened that said parents not only locked Shawn and sister down for the day, but for some unknown reason decided that I was the evil influence prompting Shawn to want to see the movie and called MY parents and did a massive pitch job of their own on why I should not be allowed to go see the movie. Mind you I had been the perfect trooper for weeks on end staying of trouble in school, not playing my music loud, even cleaning and helping around the apartment.
No dice - the hammer had been dropped and I was forbidden to go see the movie. Not just when all my friends were going, but EVER! The difference between Shawn and myself though was, while he was on lock down, I was free to go do anything BUT see "The Warriors."
Now in 1980 Germany that left a lot of options for things to do. Go to the German mall, hit the off-base walk up store for some beer and head over to the park (there was no drinking age at the time), hang out at the DYA (kind of like a rec center for military brats), and of course a ton of other normally fun stuff. Normally fun if you've got someone to do it with! But with Shawn under lock and key and everyone else going to the movie, I found myself alone with nothing to do. Normally that meant one thing-TROUBLE! Sure I got into mischief with the gang but left to their own devices most hyper kids will do any pointless thing to feed the need for some sort of rush. Heck this one time I even set a park on f... well that's another story for another time. So bored out of my mind and stressed about the crap I would be getting from the other neighborhood kids for missing the movie I did exactly what any other good hyper kid would do.
I went to go see the movie.
You see, kids can be cruel and besides, there was no way I was going to put in all the effort to be good and miss this event! How could I live with myself (not to mention the bus ride to and from school every day) if I missed this movie? Besides, I'd done sneaky things before and none of my friends ever ratted on me. I could just go to the movie and no one would ever have to know.
The strange thing about great events is, sometimes they get you so worked up that you forget where you are and what you're supposed to be doing. The movie was so cool that it was all we could talk about on the walk back to the housing area. We gushed about all the action even mimicking fight scenes like the subway bathroom fight and the park battle between The Warriors and The Baseball Furies. We talked about the Lizzies and the Riffs. We started shouting dialogue (the best our fresh minds could remember) until finally I closed my eyes and raised my arms to the sky and shouted Cyrus' now classic line "can you dig it?"
The next thing I heard was a familiar voice reply back "no I CANNOT dig it!"
In the sudden silence I worked hard to open my eyes fearful of the sight that would await. Sure enough, there stood my Dad waiting at the entrance to the apartments. In our excitement we hadn't even noticed he was there. He had watched and listened as we walked across the field leading to the entrance and the look on his face and crossed arms spoke volumes.
I was screwed.
Then yet another strange thing happened. One of my older friends looked at me and said "I can't believe your Dad wouldn't let you go see the movie, does he still have to change your diaper?" All of a sudden a barrage of bad 70's adolescent jeers came flying my way.
"Maybe you'll get to go to one of the G-rated matinees!"
"I think they're gonna be playing "Bambi" next weekend!"
"You can always go the kiddie theater with the other first graders!"
Before the next insult could be sent my way Dad cut my friends off at the verbal pass.
"We told John that we didn't want him going and just by your actions towards him I can see we made the right choice, and obviously so did John."
I wasn't immediately sure what he meant about me making the right choice and before I could even make sense of dad's comment I was ushered so as Dad put it "we could wash up before dinner."
Now silence leading up to dinner normally meant that bombs would be dropping sometime DURING dinner and never had I heard such a silence waiting to eat, not to mention while eating. I casually chewed Mom's homemade grub wondering if I was going to be able to keep any of it down with all the butterflies bouncing around in my stomach. In my mind I continually went through every "should have done" scenario even at one point contemplating several tales which might help me escape from this sticky mess. Finally, polishing off his last morsel, Dad put down his fork, took a deep breath and I knew it was coming. What fate awaited me? Restriction? No music? No comics? ALL OF THE ABOVE?!?!?!
Without looking up Dad calmly said...
"I know it was tough for you to miss out on going to the movies with your friends, and from what I heard come out of their mouths, it's not going to get any easier but as tough as it was to do the right thing you hung in there and did as you were told. For that your mother and I feel that you deserve to go see the movie tomorrow."
WHAT?!?!?! Was this for real? WAIT! This had to be some kind of trap. Was all this to see if I'd get caught in a lie? A chance for me to make up for my wrong doing by coming clean? If I didn't 'fess up life might end up being much worse. While I had thought earlier that things couldn't get any worse I could only imagine having the offense of "lying" thrown on top of being disobedient. I knew what I had to do. Getting up from the table I walked over to Dad, threw my arms around him and said-
"THANK YOU DAD! I CAN'T WAIT TO GO TOMORROW! THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!"
I held my breath as Dad embraced me and said-
"You're a good kid John."
If only he knew, if only he knew.
Years later my wife Jeannie got me the director's cut DVD of "The Warriors" for Christmas and during a phone conversation I told Dad about my present.
What he said next almost made me soil myself.
"What do you need that for? You've already seen it twice."
Hmmm...Wonder what he meant by that?
For the record, I have actually seen "The Warriors" several hundred times. It never gets old.
Neither does the story of the very first time I saw it! Watching it AGAIN the very next day was just as awesome. Not only did I get to see the first showing, I was the ONLY one of my friends to already get to see it twice! I was now THE authority on "The Warriors!"
BTW - A week after watching "The Warriors" for the first time some of my friends and I camped out one night. During the night we put on our DYA baseball team uniforms, slapped on some face paint, and roamed around the neighborhood and German streets trying our best to look like The Baseball Furies.
Until Shawn's dad caught us around 2 a.m. and made us all go home.
Check out deleted scenes from the cinematic version below.
