The Outsiders is a film adaptation of the novel of the same name by S. E. Hinton, and was made in 1983 by Francis Ford Coppola. The movie was released in March 1983. Jo Ellen Misakian, a librarian at Lone Star Jr. High School in Fresno, California, was responsible for inspiring Coppola to make the movie.
The Outsiders is noted for being the breakout film of many future stars. The movie earned C. Thomas Howell a Young Artist Award, became the first Brat Pack movie when casting
Rob Lowe and Emilio Estevez as supporting Greasers, and further establishing the careers of Matt Dillon,
Tom Cruise,
Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, and
Diane Lane. Both Lane and Dillon went on to appear in Coppola's related film Rumble Fish.
Dallas falling out of his seat at the drive-in was unplanned.
The actors playing the Socs were put in luxury hotel accommodations and given leather-bound scripts, while the Greaser-actors were put on the ground floor and received tattered scripts. Coppola is said to have done this to create tension between both groups before filming. The cast played pranks on each other and the hotel staff during the shoot. Years later,
Tom Cruise met someone who worked at the hotel, and when he discovered that it was the same hotel where he and the rest of the cast had stayed, his first words were, "I'm sorry."
The film was shot on location in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The drive-in is the Admiral Twin, still going strong in 2008.
Coppola filmed The Outsiders and Rumble Fish back-to-back in 1982. He wrote the screenplay for the latter while on days off from shooting the former. Many of the same locations were used in both films, as were many of the same cast and crew members.
