Summary
The film opens with a shot of Ponyboy Curtis, a young member of a gang, with slicked back hair, sitting at a desk in his room and beginning to write in a composition notebook for English class. He writes "The Outsiders" at the top of the page and begins writing, as we hear his writing narrated in voiceover: “When I stepped out into the bright light from the darkness of the movie house..." The credits now begin, and the title of the film moves across the screen. A Stevie Wonder song, “Stay Gold” plays as the credits play. The scene then shifts to show Dally, a member of the Greaser gang, standing on a street corner smoking a cigarette. Ponyboy and Johnny Cade, another young Greaser around Ponyboy's age, walk up to meet him, asking Dally what he wants to do, to which he responds “nothing legal,” and beckons them to follow him, smiling. "Gloria" by the band Them plays. They pass a young girl and Dally looks her over as she walks. The trio walks to a drive-up restaurant and Dally greets a fellow Greaser in a parked car. Beside them, a fight breaks out between a Greaser and a young man in a tan jacket, and Dally, Ponyboy and Johnny watch in delight and awe. The boy in the tan jacket pulls a knife on his attacker just as a cop car pulls up to break up the fight. Dally and the boys leave the scene, afraid of the cops.
They go to the gas station, where Sodapop Curtis, Ponyboy's older brother and Steve Randle, another Greaser, work. While Steve resists, Sodapop convinces Steve to give Dally some money. Dally and the boys continue their walk, and Johnny asks what movie they are going to see later, while puffing on a cigarette. Dally puts Johnny in a momentary headlock and tells them it’s “one of those beach movies." When they keep walking, they come across a group of young boys (elementary school age) smoking cigarettes and playing cards. Dally tells them to hand over the cards, which they do, and he asks them if they have ever played 52 card pick-up. The camera closes in on his face, as he says, to no one in particular, that he doesn’t like little kids, before throwing all of the cards into the air. Dally then bursts into yells to playfully intimidate the young boys, and he and Johnny and Ponyboy chase the young boys through a field of tall grass next to the parking lot, and Dally tells the boys they should head to the movies.
Later, after it has gotten dark, Dally, Ponyboy and Johnny crawl under a small opening under a chain-link fence and sneak into a drive-in movie theater lot. Cherry, a beautiful preppily-dressed girl, angrily gets out of a car of Socs. One of the Socs, Bob, tells her, “Just try it! You’re supposed to be my girlfriend, aren’t you?” while Dally and the boys walk past and watch. We can hear the couple continue to fight about Cherry’s refusal to drink, as Dally nods to someone. Cherry and her friend walk away from the car, as Bob and his friend stay in the car, Bob sipping from a flask while his friend tells him, “They just want to make things complicated.” Elsewhere, Dally propels himself over a railing to the seating area, and Ponyboy and Johnny follow suit. On the screen, a suspenseful beach scene plays, and we see Two-Bit, a Greaser, approaching a car of girls asking if they want to “see what’s hanging.” Dally and the boys settle into their seats, as Cherry and her friend, Marcia, sit in front of them. Cherry is exasperated, and tells Marcia, “I came here to see a movie, and I’m gonna see a movie.” In the row behind the girls, Ponyboy complains that he forgot a jacket and is cold, while Dally lights a match for his cigarette off the chair next to Cherry.
Cherry is surprised and annoyed at first by Dally’s performance, but then she and Marcia begin to laugh at Dally’s charm. Dally leans back and says to Ponyboy, “Some cute redhead, huh?” before leaning forward and asking Cherry in her ear if she’s a real redhead. “Are you real?” he asks again, putting his legs up on the seat in front of him, and falling over. Ponyboy laughs at his clumsy move and Cherry cannot help but smile, snickering to herself. Dally gets back up and asks Cherry how he can figure out if her red hair is real, and suggesting that he wants to know if it matches her pubic hair. This infuriates Cherry, who scoffs in his face. Dally leans back and Johnny tells him to cut it out. Cherry then angrily tells Dally to take his feet off her chair and shut up, and Johnny gets up to avoid the ensuing fight. When Dally asks who’s going to make him take his feet down—“your boyfriend?”—Marcia whispers in Cherry’s ear that Dally recently got out of “some jail or something.” The girls threaten Dally that if he doesn’t leave them alone they’ll call the cops, but that only makes Dally talk back more, finally offering to buy Cherry a soda. Cherry doesn’t take the offer well, however, yelling, “Get lost, hood!” Dally leaves.
The scene shifts to show different cars at the drive-up. Some Greasers are getting out of the trunk of a car and laughing to themselves. Two-Bit goes up behind a girl, lifting her skirt to look at her panties. When she slaps him in the face and calls him a “filthy greaser,” he only continues to laugh maniacally. On the drive-in screen, we see slapstick antics, and Ponyboy watches, visibly unsettled by the conflict between Cherry and Dally. Defensively, Cherry swings around and asks Ponyboy if he’s going to give them a hard time also. Seeing his meek and respectful temperament, however, Cherry changes her tune and asks his name. When he tells her his name is “Ponyboy,” she admires its originality, to which Ponyboy responds, “My dad was an original person. I’ve got a brother named Sodapop. It says so on his birth certificate.” Cherry reveals that her name is Sherri, but that her friends call her Cherry for her red hair. Ponyboy tells her that he already knows her name, that they go to the same school, and that he knows she’s a cheerleader. When Cherry asks him what he’s doing hanging around with Dally, he is visibly offended, insisting that Dally’s his “buddy” and that he is also a Greaser. Cherry apologizes.
Cherry then asks Ponyboy about Sodapop, whom she knows works at the gas station, just as Johnny returns to his seat. Marcia and Cherry gush about how cute they think Sodapop is, with Cherry saying, “I should’ve known you were brothers,” much to Ponyboy’s visible delight. When Marcia asks why Sodapop hasn’t been at school, and if it’s because he’s working so much after their parents died, Ponyboy drearily admits that Sodapop dropped out. Dally is back, with sodas for everyone, and sits down next to an annoyed Cherry, handing her a soda and saying, “Maybe that’ll cool you off.” She promptly throws the soda in his face, yelling, “Maybe that will cool you off, Greaser! When you learn to talk and act decent, I might cool off, too!” Dally doesn’t back off, and begins to paw at Cherry, who resists, while Ponyboy and Johnny watch from the row behind them. Johnny eventually stands up and tells Dally to leave her alone, and he stops, and storms out. Other people in the audience tell him to calm down, and he walks away in a huff.
Ponyboy turns to Johnny and tells him that he blew it, and Cherry turns around to thank him for intervening. Marcia invites the boys to sit with them, and the boys excitedly move up a row. When Marcia asks their ages, Ponyboy says 14 and Johnny says 16. Johnny tries to tell the girls that Dallas is an okay person once you know him, but Cherry insists that she’s glad she doesn’t know him, as Two-Bit comes up behind Johnny and puts his arms around him, scaring him. Two-Bit hands Johnny a beer and asks to be introduced to Cherry and Marcia. When Johnny and Ponyboy explain that Dallas was bothering the girls so they sat with them, Two-Bit asks where Dallas went, when suddenly another Greaser, Tim Shepard, appears and asks where Dallas went also. Ponyboy tells Tim that Dallas left, but Tim is upset, saying that he knows that Dallas slashed his tires. Ponyboy tries to talk him down, insisting that Dallas left, the others nodding their heads in agreement. Two-Bit asks Johnny if Dallas has a blade, but Johnny says he doesn’t think so. “Good deal,” Two-Bit responds, “Tim’ll fight fair as long as he don’t.” The girls are visibly distressed by the talk of violence, but Marcia soon begins to laugh about the boys’ cavalier response to their endangered friend. Two-Bit offers Marcia chewing tobacco, and Cherry stands and invites Ponyboy to go to the concessions stand with her.
At the concessions stand, Cherry and Ponyboy talk. Cherry asks Ponyboy if Two-Bit is dangerous, but Ponyboy assures her that he isn’t dangerous like Dallas. As some boys cut the line and Cherry and Ponyboy get cups for the soda fountain, Cherry brings up the fact that Johnny seemed nervous, and Ponyboy explains that Johnny is nervous because he got beat up by some Soc. Surprised to hear that Soc guys could be so violent, Cherry asks if that’s how he got his scar, and Ponyboy tells her yes, and that the guy who did it was wearing rings at the time. As they pay for their sodas, Cherry assures Ponyboy that not all Soc are like that, and that to generalize would be like saying that all Greasers are like Dallas Winston. On the other side of the cash registers, a group of boys are fighting, and the aggression is escalating, with one of them challenging the other to fight him outside. A worker at the concessions stand tells the boys to take it outside, as Cherry assures Ponyboy that “things are rough all over,” and that being a Soc doesn’t automatically make your life easier. Ponyboy shrugs and they go back to their seats. Back at the seats, Two-Bit continues to hit on Marcia, asking her about her neighborhood on the “south side,” the nice part of town. When he tells her he’s from the other side of town, she giggles.
Cars leave the drive-in lot, as Ponyboy and Cherry walk home. Cherry asks about Ponyboy’s oldest brother as Ponyboy lights a cigarette. Ponyboy simply responds, “What’s to tell? He’s big and roofs houses.” Cherry presses him, however, asking if Darry is “wild and reckless like Soda, or dreamy like you?” Ponyboy gets angry, and insists that Darry isn't anything like them and that Darry hates him, even imagining that if he could, Darry would put him in a boys’ home to get rid of him. Johnny and Two-Bit attempt to smooth over Ponyboy’s accusation, but Ponyboy doesn’t let up, telling Johnny that he isn’t “wanted at home either.” Two-Bit gets angry at Ponyboy and Ponyboy apologizes. As Two-Bit insists to Johnny that they couldn’t get along without him, a car pulls up and Cherry anxiously alerts Marcia.
Bob Sheldon and Randy Anderson get out of the car. Confused by the fact that the girls are hanging around with Greasers, Bob angrily asks Cherry what she’s doing. Cherry berates him for having gotten drunk earlier, insisting that she never wants to go out with him while he’s drinking. Randy confronts her, saying that her distaste for Bob’s drinking shouldn’t motivate her to hang out with Greasers. When Randy goes up to Two-Bit and threatens that they have two other Socs in the backseat, Two-Bit pulls a knife, breaks a bottle which he hands to Ponyboy, and starts yelling threats. Johnny looks at the fight anxiously, then down at Bob’s flask. Cherry becomes upset and urges them not to fight, then calls Ponyboy over to talk with her privately, and apologizes. He responds, “Look, I could never use this [the broken bottle]. I could never cut no one,” and Cherry realizes that she and Marcia should go with the Socs to prevent a fight. Before she leaves she says to Ponyboy, “If I see you in school and I don’t say hi, please don’t take it personal, OK?” As she tries to apologize for it, Ponyboy says he understands. Cherry’s final words before she goes with Bob and Randy are, “I hope I never see Dallas Winston again. If I did I’d probably fall in love with him.” She runs to the car, urging Bob not to touch her, and as they drive away, Bob warns the boys to "Just watch it." "Gloria" begins to play again, as the car drives away.
Analysis
From the start of the film, the primary tension between the preppier rich gang and the less affluent greaser gang is front and center. Ponyboy, the introverted protagonist, seeks to project a kind of stylized, masculine toughness—but his boyish exterior betrays him. Dallas, perhaps the quintessential Greaser, has recently been released from jail, smokes cigarettes with flair, is irreverent and crass towards women, and seems to care little for rules. The Socs, on the other hand, are depicted as rich and bullying, entitled and used to getting what they want. While the Greasers wear grease in their hair, and embrace having been born on the "wrong side of the tracks," the Socs are clean-cut, wearing varsity jackets and sporty close-cropped hair styles. Class distinctions are a huge rift between the characters in the film.
Ponyboy is the narrator and protagonist, and the action at the start is depicted from his perspective. As the film starts, we see Ponyboy sit down at his desk to begin writing something called “The Outsiders.” This indicates that the entire movie will be told from his perspective, filtered through his writing. Ponyboy is a reflector and an observer, and perhaps that is why he is our narrator. His interactions with Cherry only confirm his status as more sensitive and thoughtful than the other boys. She notices his temperament immediately and is endeared to him in spite of his being from a rival gang. Cherry also notices that Ponyboy's more reflective qualities do not equip him for the violence surrounding him. Ponyboy is in charge of remembering, observing, and recounting, but these skills do not necessarily make him a very good gang member.
Francis Ford Coppola, the director, creates an intimacy between the viewer and the gritty lives of the characters depicted. The first shot of Ponyboy situates the viewer in the room of a young boy with a big imagination and a reflective personality. As we are transported into his journal, we see things from the perspective of the Greaser gang of which he is part. Using vivid camera angles and an evocative setting to orient the viewer, Coppola illuminates his subjects compellingly. The shots of Dally, Johnny and Ponyboy wandering around town looking for fun and trouble show a softer and more pleasure-seeking side of their lives, and the soft lighting and beautifully-shot fields reflect these fleeting moments of joy. When the boys chase the younger boys through the field, the viewer is clued into the generational structure of the community, one in which younger boys learn to become tough by being bullied a bit by their older counterparts.
In addition to the class division between the two gangs that is portrayed in the film, a stark division along gender lines also exists. While the girls are linked to the Socs by virtue of their shared social class, when we first encounter Cherry and Marcia, Cherry is angry with her boyfriend for pressuring her to drink alcohol at the movies. She is annoyed that he is not treating her like more of a lady. On the other hand, Cherry is not a Greaser by any means, and feels disdainful of Dally’s crass behavior, eventually calling him a “hood.” When she first encounters Dally, Cherry is unexpectedly disarmed and slightly bemused by his roughness and unceremonious behavior, but soon becomes annoyed with his disrespectful remarks about her hair color. Not only are Greasers and Socs at odds, but so too are boys and girls. Ponyboy, a younger and less rough member of his gang, attracts Cherry’s affection, but he quickly swats it away in favor of his fraternal loyalty to the Greasers.
In addition to learning about the rifts between Socs from Greasers, we also learn that the two gangs perhaps share more qualities than they would like to believe. As Cherry assures Ponyboy in the concessions line, “Things are rough all over.” She seeks to connect the two groups in Ponyboy’s mind, by suggesting that everyone is having a hard time and that the gangs are fighting for superficial reasons. This kind of thinking doesn’t seem to convince anyone, least of all Ponyboy, who doesn’t respond. While the problem seems simple to Cherry—the Greasers and the Socs are fighting because they want to blame someone for their problems, but they have the same demons—this disruptive logic doesn’t seem to hold much water in the logic of gang warfare. Cherry’s assessment is both lucid and naive; it is perhaps the one idea that could stop the fighting once and for all, and yet, as Ponyboy knows, the violence is impossible to stop.
Indeed, gang warfare and violence seem to be ubiquitous in the world of the film. Around every corner is a fight. Even aside from the struggles between the main characters, fights break out everywhere. On the way to the movies, Dallas and the two boys encounter a knife fight in the parking lot of the drive-up restaurant. Likewise, when Cherry and Ponyboy are at the concessions building at the movies, a fight between some boys is breaking out near the register. Violence is in the air, always threatening to bubble up to the surface and start chaos. The only hope one has in such a violent place is the promise of a “fair fight.” When Tim Shepard goes looking for Dallas, one can palpably feel the threat in his tone, his desire to have vengeance for the fact that Dallas slashed his tires. The only hope Dallas has, according to Two-Bit, is that he isn’t carrying a “blade,” so Tim will probably give him a fair fight. Dallas and Tim will likely get in a scuffle, but without a blade, the violence will stop short of tragedy.
