In Oklahoma in the mid-1960's, tension between upper and lower-class gangs results in violence and tragedy.
S.E. Hinton's novel The Outsiders, published when the author was only 18 years old, became a curriculum standard for American junior high and high school students and a perennial favorite of young adults. Accclaimed director Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather, Apocalypse Now) received a letter from a school containing a petition signed by over 100 students suggesting that he would be the best choice to adapt the book for the screen.
Coppola, whose last two films were hugely ambitious visual extravaganzas (which nearly ruined him financially), scaled back to a more traditional style here, and at times seems to be consciously echoing Rebel Without a Cause, the epitome of Teen Angst cinema. To ensure the veracity of the production, the film was shot on location in Hinton's hometown of Tulsa, where the story is set. Hinton herself worked on the film as a consultant to Coppola, and also has an acting cameo.
The film is also notable for featuring many young actors who would go on to great success in the industry: Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Ralph Macchio, and C. Thomas Howell. There are also appearances by musicians-turned-actors Tom Waits and Leif Garrett. Coppola was so enraptured by Hinton's work that the following year he adapted Rumble Fish, another of the writer's novels, with Dillon and Lane cast again.
Conflicts with the studio releasing the film forced Coppola to trim a good number of scenes, and many years later, when personally screening the film for a high school class, he was asked about the missing parts by students. Coppola decided to restore some of these scenes to create a more faithful adaptation, and this alternate cut was released in 2005 as "The Outsiders: The Complete Novel". Coppola also removed most of his father's original music score and substituted popular rock songs from the era (something too expensive at the time of production).
Running time of the extended cut is approx. 110 minutes.
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