The Wanderers (1979) on Netflix
In 1963 the Bronx, Richie leads the Wanderers, an Italian-American street gang. Turkey wants to join the Fordham Baldies, and a dispute with the Del Bombers has Richie seeking allies.
- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb7.3/1013,633 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes89%
Trailer
Plot summary
Richie runs with the Wanderers, an Italian-American greaser gang in the Bronx in 1963. Among them are Joey and Turkey, who wants to join a rival crew, the Fordham Baldies. When Joey insults the Baldies, he and Turkey flee, and Richie and Buddy come to help before the Baldies chase all of them. A newcomer from New Jersey, Perry, comes to their aid and is persuaded to join the Wanderers. At school the gang clashes with the Del Bombers, an African-American gang, and the two sides agree to settle their quarrel. Needing a gang to back them, Richie asks Chubby Galasso, his girlfriend Despie's father and an alleged local mafia boss, to help.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Wanderers (1979)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- For an entire week hundreds of men armed with real baseball bats, axe handles and chains hurled themselves at the cast for the Ducky Boys fight, the mayhem sometimes continuing for a full five minutes after the director yelled cut; some of the actors and camera crew were seriously injured and had to be hospitalized.
- After Philip Kaufman and Richard Price failed to pitch the project to Alberto Grimaldi, Kaufman signed on to direct what would have been the first Star Trek motion picture, Star Trek: Planet of the Titans, until Paramount Pictures abandoned it, saying there was no market for science-fiction movies.
- The Wanderers was the acting debut of Ken Wahl: someone sent Rudin a photograph of Wahl on his way to his job in a pizza parlor, thinking he could play one of the smaller roles, but Kaufman felt he was talented and cast him in the lead role instead.
- Former members of the real Baldies complained the film portrayed them incorrectly, insisting "[The movie] is a lie! This was not a bad neighborhood", and after Rose Kaufman told them where to go it nearly resulted in a brawl with Wahl and several other actors.
- Rudin organized an interview with Manz, and she was so convincing that Kaufman, Price and everyone else assumed she was a real member of a street gang; because of that, the character Peewee was specifically written for her.
- To cast the role of Perry LaGuardia, Kaufman telephoned every gymnasium around New York asking for a "six-foot, four inch, 18 year-old kid", and was put into contact with Ganios, whom he cast in the role.
- Despite the differences, novelist Richard Price approved of Kaufman's adaptation of his book: "I love that picture. It's not my book, and I don't care. The spirit is right, and the way Phil Kaufman directed it showed me another way of looking at my own book."
- The final battle with the Ducky Boys, which takes place during a football game, was filmed in Van Cortlandt Park; Kaufman compared the scene to a "brutal British soccer brawl", while Ganios compared it to the Battle of Mons Graupius.
