The Cross and the Switchblade (1970) on Netflix
GP19701h 46mBiographyCrimeDrama
David Wilkerson leaves small-town Pennsylvania for New York, with almost no money, to preach to gang members. Little Bo offers to bring him to the Mau Maus and the Bishops.
- Netflix3.6/5
- IMDb6.0/101,346 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes73%
Trailer
Plot summary
David Wilkerson is a young Pentecostal pastor in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania. A magazine article about seven teenagers in a criminal gang moves him to travel alone to Brooklyn with almost no money and speak to members of street gangs about Jesus. He cannot get close to the Egyptian Kings, the young men on trial for gang violence, but his courthouse visit draws publicity. Through it he meets Little Bo, a streetwise youth who offers to bring him to the Mau Maus and the Bishops, the gangs battling each other for territory. Nicky Cruz, a Mau Maus leader, threatens him, and Rosa, Nicky's girl, needs money for heroin.
Cast
- Don Lamondas Sergeant Delano
- Sam Capuanoas Hector Gomez
- Dino DeFilippias Israel
- Gil Frazieras Big Cat
- Stew Silveras Augie
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Cross and the Switchblade (1970)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Pat Boone read the book after seeing it at an airport newsstand on the way to Mexico City, calling it "a modern day sequel to the Acts of the Apostles". He and an associate took out an option on it but were unable to raise finance: the uniform response was that religion is poison at the box office.
- Pat Boone regards the film as one of his favorites, though he took "a huge gamble" with it: financially it did not pay off because he did it for next to nothing, virtually as a charity, and he does not regret it at all.
- Filming took place in Harlem in October 1969, and Boone said everyone there, including the police, had been very cooperative, guessing that they sensed this was not a religious or a "church" drama.
SPOILER
In real life Nicky Cruz went on to become an ordained minister, preaching the Gospel due to the initial efforts of David Wilkerson, and in the end the two start a center called Teen Challenge to support teens.- By 1968 Wilkerson's book had sold more than four million copies, and by 1975 that figure would be over six million copies sold.
- It was the first credit for Erik Estrada, and it was Pat Boone's last lead in a feature for over twenty years.
