Tag Archives: The Warriors

Movies

New York Movies: Which Ones Are the Best? A Final Look

In this final installment about movies set in or about New York City, Rich has this to say:

Growing up in New York City was something else. I was exposed to so much multicultural lifestyles, which my kids will never experience living in a semirural area of New Jersey.

New York City has a unique vibe when it comes to movies made in this town.

Here are three that best capture the city:

West Side Story (1961)

This classic musical adapted the Romeo and Juliet story to the rough streets of 1960 New York City with the gangs of Hell’s Kitchen on center stage.

Watching this as a child, it was funny that I wanted to be a Jet, especially after hearing the rousing song “When You’re a Jet,” which espouses being part of a group that protects you and is always with you.

Being of Puerto Rican descent, I should have been identifying with the Sharks, the rival gang of Puerto Ricans.

New York City was an exciting place filled with opportunity, but was not without its racial tensions. It was a place of immigrants, where so many ethnic groups took up their places and established their turf.

The movie was set in the mid and lower West Side of Manhattan with its chain link fences, concrete parks and endless tenements.  It had a very bleak, hard and gray color palette.

Many years later I had a summer job counting change from pay telephones at a New York Telephone facility near 12th Avenue and I frequently took walks at lunchtime and ate my lunch at Hell’s Kitchen Park among some homeless people and the pigeons.

I thought of “West Side Story” and wondered if this was a park that they may have filmed around.

From ‘60s era gangs in New York City we move up to the late ‘70s gangs in a time when my brothers and I were growing up.

The Warriors (1979)

This was the story of the rising gangs of the late ‘70s, when New York City was in a fiscal crisis and grappling with high crime, drugs, burned-out buildings and overcrowding.

The movie’s premise is that rival gangs come together to overpower the police and rule the city.

It opens with a view of the Wonder Wheel ride and the Warriors, a gang from Coney Island in Brooklyn, and their journey to the Bronx for a meeting of the gangs of the city.

They travel by subway from Coney Island to Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx, although as they follow the map it looks like they are headed to Pelham Bay Park.

This is one of the discrepancies that movies have when it comes to navigating the true geography and logistics of the city.

It was all so familiar to me as I had traveled from the Bronx to Coney Island many times to visit Astroland, home of the famous Cyclone rollercoaster, and the Wonder Wheel, a crazy Ferris wheel ride like no other on the planet.

Cyrus, the charismatic leader of the Riffs, holds the crowd of gangs mesmerized with a rousing speech on how they fight for their own turf and never really accomplish anything. But if the gangs can unite, they can overpower the police.

In the midst of his speech and many “Can you dig it?!” lines, Cyrus is shot and killed by the leader of the Rogues but the Warriors get blamed.

The movie then tracks the Warriors’ flight home to Coney Island by train and foot through the neighborhoods of New York, fighting all the gangs that are now after them.

Being born and raised in the Bronx I had personal experience with neighborhood gangs, like the Black Spades and the Savage Skulls.  My older brother was actively recruited by one of the gangs but amazingly was able to escape without consequence.

He said one of the initiations was having to walk along a line of gang members and get beat down by each of them. You had to make it to the end of the line to pass.

This movie received a bad rap after its initial release as fighting was reported to have broken out in and around some of the theaters but it has now gained some cult status.

The movie was filmed throughout New York City and included some great fight scenes, including a fight with the baseball bat-wielding gang, the Baseball Furies; a heated furniture- smashing, gun-shooting fight with an all-girl gang the Lizzies, and a subway bathroom fight with the Punks, led by a roller-skating captain.

Leaving the gang world, here’s another movie in another period that holds some infamous New York City crime history.

Summer of Sam (1999)

The summer of 1977 was hot and dangerous.

The .44-Caliber Killer, also known as the Son of Sam, was stalking and shooting people in cars in lovers’ lanes around the city.

The police were not making progress and the city was in a panic.

This movie by Spike Lee depicts a Bronx neighborhood terrorized by this killer but more from their own paranoia and growing distrust of one another.

Again, my neighborhood could have passed for the one depicted in this movie, especially with one memory that comes to mind.

From the time of the first shooting in the Pelham Bay Park area of the Bronx, which was not that far from us, many of the neighborhood people became very concerned and worried about their teenage and young adult children.

One night after one of the shootings, much of the neighborhood was out on the street weighing what to do. My oldest brother Ralph had a car and would cruise around during the weekends and we were all told by our parents not to go out and park anywhere.

There was chaos and worry, which escalated as more shootings occurred.

This movie captured the time and the mood perfectly as we had experienced it.

 

 

 

Mele's Musings, Movies

Lights! Camera! New York!

If there is one thing guys can argue about, it’s movies.

Put three guys in a room and ask them to rank the best movie in any category and you will get five different opinions.

Now, suppose these guys are New Yorkers.

You can get five different opinions — this time with attitude.

Which bring us to this: Picking the top three movies that were either set in New York City or best depicted it.

This was all set in motion by an article last year in The New York Times that attempted to tackle this issue.

At AMR, we are an opinionated stubborn lot, each with our own heartfelt views of movies and each with our own personal favorites for which movie shined the best spotlight on our hometown.

So over the next few days, each of us will weigh in with our “Best Of” lists. Turns out some of our picks overlap but many do not.

What movies set in New York City were your favorites? How far off base are our picks?

Let us know. You can comment on our Facebook page or write us at amr@aboutmenshow.com

Or be like a New Yorker and just scream at your computer screen loud enough to wake the neighbors.

Here’s my picks:

“The Taking of Pelham One, Two, Three”

For me, this is the quintessential New York movie. Maybe it explains why it ranks as my all-time favorite (Shhhhhh….Don’t tell “Star Wars.”)

Let’s start with the basics: The No. 6 line (aka Pelham line aka Lexington Avenue line ) was the one I grew up with, so it’s close to home.

The thing about “Pelham” is that it so perfectly captured the attitude, passion, dark humor and grittiness of New York and its 8 million inhabitants.

The plot is terrific and the dialogue is like listening to a beautiful symphony of smart-ass street-savvy New Yorkers.

The authentic feel of the cop cars, the politics and the trains coupled with the dynamic soundtrack make this a must-see celebration of the city.

“The Warriors”

This is another one of those dark gritty movies with some smaller light moments to break up the grim.

Set largely at night with an overwhelming sense of menace lurking behind every corner, this 1979 movie captured the dispirited nature of New Yorkers who were contending with high crime and a broken subway system.

Despite its almost relentless hopelessness, there does come triumph in the end.

It’s a bit schlocky in places and maybe the production values are not the highest, but it stands out for the sense of place it delivers about the city.

Bonus: In recognition of a big blowout cast reunion in 2015, I interviewed one of the leading actors, Terence Michos, who played Vermin in the movie.

Vermin Speaks! An About Men Radio Podcast Interview With “The Warriors” Star

​”The Pope of Greenwich Village”

This one is a personal favorite again because it hit close to home.

I was in college when it was being shot, with many key scenes filmed at “my” subway stop on the No. 6 line at Castle Hill Avenue.

I recall the big stage lights and crew occupying one of the entrances to the subway and being there for a long stretch. It was exciting to see a bit of Hollywood come to the Bronx!

There was an old Irish bar on the corner of Castle Hill and Westchester Avenues where some of the key characters, played by Mickey Rourke and Eric Roberts, meet.

That it was shot in a place so familiar to me lent the film an air of authenticity that was easy to relate to.

You know, it’s like one of those things where you see a scene on the big screen and you go: “I know where that is!”

BTW, as a total aside, AMR posse member Pedro and I both have had our brush with Hollywood, appearing as extras in a crowd protest scene in the 1983 movie “Daniel,” starring Timothy Hutton.

We had to get to the Lower East Side super early on a winter’s morning, wear dark clothing and donated our day’s pay to a charity.

If you want to see what we look like, click here. It’s truly a “Where’s Waldo?” moment.

And no, I still have not watched the movie.

 

 

 

 

About Men, Podcast

Vermin Speaks! An About Men Radio Podcast Interview With “The Warriors” Star

A blowout reunion of fans and cast members of “The Warriors” is set to take place Sunday in Coney Island, the home turf of the fictional gang from the 1979 cult classic.

One of the gang’s leading men — memorable for his flirtatious overtures with the ladies and his comedic touches — was a character named Vermin, played by Terence Michos.

Christopher Mele of About Men Radio interviewed Michos in his native Poughkeepsie, N.Y., about his life as an actor, the staying power of “The Warriors,” how God called to him and transformed his life and some funny behind-the-scenes stories about the filming of the movie.

We met an outdoor pavilion in a park in the Town of Poughkeepsie neighborhood where he grew up. (Special shoutout to one of Poughkeepsie’s finest, Detective Garth Mason, for connecting us with Michos.)

Michos was gracious and down-to-earth, the kind of guy with whom you could get lost in conversation and not realize how much time had gone by.

Indeed, daylight was waning as our late afternoon chat was wrapping up.

One of the humorous asides to emerge in the interview: How Vermin’s character came to repeat things twice when he was excited or in a jam.

Fans of the movie will recall Vermin saying things like “Hurt me, hurt me,” or “OK, OK.”

Michos said he was imitating a verbal tic from a character who was a sidekick in the 1960s animated series “The Mighty Hercules.”

The sidekick, a young centaur named Newton, had a distinctive speech pattern of saying everything twice.

Michos talks about this source of inspiration and other nuggets in this latest podcast of About Men Radio, about which all we can say is: Listen, listen!

Mele's Musings, Movies

An Interview With Terence Michos, Vermin From “The Warriors”

Terence Michos walks from the parking lot wearing an aqua blue V-neck shirt, khaki pants and sunglasses.

From a distance, it’s hard to reconcile that the man headed toward you is, in fact, the actor who played Vermin in the hit 1979 movie “The Warriors.”

Gone is the baby fat in the face. The curly locks are missing. The shoulders are not quite as broad.

But when he gets closer, and he smiles, the disarming and mischievous face of the lothario that Michos once played is unmistakable.

At 61, Michos would be the envy of men half his age.

He’s fit and trim. His midriff is even more flat now than when he bared it while wearing the leather vest of the Warriors. And even with crow’s feet at play around his eyes, his face exudes a youthful vitality.

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Michos is going to need some of that energy on Sunday when he and other cast members gather for what promises to be a blowout reunion in Coney Island.

Expect to see a huge turnout of fans, many replicating the costumes of some of the colorful gangs featured in the movie.

Think of it as cosplay for hardcore junkies of “The Warriors.”

But what’s not to like about this gritty, of-its-era depiction of New York City at its nadir in the 1970s?

The movie, with its haunting nighttime footage set against a foot-tapping syntho soundtrack, was a safe way for non-New Yorkers to view the stew of the city’s graffiti-covered subways, runaway crime and the specter of street violence.

And for those who grew up in the city in that decade, it was a chance to glimpse real-life neighborhoods and subway stations on film while rooting for underdogs.

(The Warriors are falsely accused of fatally shooting a charismatic leader who, at a summit in the Bronx, seeks to unite all the city’s gangs. The Warriors then have to make their way from the Bronx to their home turf in Coney Island, all the while crossing through rival gang territory and being pursued by the cops.)

For Michos, the all-day appearance at “The Warriors: Back to Coney,” signing autographs and interacting with fans will be a throwback to the intense experience of what it was like to make the movie.

“It was a wild, wild grueling time,” he recalled of the filming, which took place at numerous New York City locales.

The crew filmed in the middle of the night and the physical demands on the actors were not for the faint of heart.

Those scenes of Michos and other members of the Warriors being chased by other gang members and running at a full-out sprint?

Scenes like those were shot over and over again, 20 or 30 times a night, to get it just right.

And the scene at the Lizzies’ hangout where a night of amorous adventure turns to gunfire and mayhem?

Michos was hurling himself over that couch 15 or 20 times – without the benefit of padding.

In fact, he said he did all of his own stunts, with the exception of when his character got thrown into the mirror in the subway station men’s room.

He recalled going with some of his co-stars, hat brims pulled low, to theaters where the movie was playing and watching as movie-goers erupted in cheers and excitement at the fisticuffs.

Laughing, Michos remembers seeing real-life gang members sitting in the theater and saying to their girlfriends: “I can fight, but I can’t fight like those guys do!”

Michos was relieved not to be recognized, lest real life imitate fiction and he and his co-stars be challenged to a brawl.

warrior2

Michos was 25 when the movie was shot. His co-stars were also young.

It was a time of heavy partying, Studio 54 and cocaine, he said.

But not for him.

“I was probably more boring than all the other guys on the set,” he said.

He would tell his movie mates: “‘I’m going home. You guys hold it together.’ I would be telling them about my relationship with God. They loved me. They wouldn’t bring me to their parties, but they loved me.”

But lest you think he was all a goody two-shoes, Michos was quick to note that he shared with his character a weakness for the ladies.

“That was always there,” he said with a grin.

For Michos, the role of Vermin was almost not to be. He’s got the hit TV show “Taxi” to thank with propelling him to “Warriors” fame.

Here’s what happened: The movie auditioned thousands and originally did not pick Michos.

The actor Tony Danza also tried out, and those doing the casting liked him, so he got the part.

Michos went home, had dinner with his girlfriend and cried.

While coming to terms with the rejection, he said he prayed. “I said, ‘Lord, I’m yours.’”

Danza got a starring role in “Taxi,” which pulled him out of “Warriors” and Michos was called back for a second audition.

The movie-makers settled on him for Vermin, who, while a lover, was also a fighter.

“I think it was a good role for me because I think the film was enhanced by that little comedic twist, those little jokes that lightened things up a little.”

He said it’s not unusual six times a day to hear fans recite their favorite pieces of his dialogue back to him:

“Those cats were some desperate dudes.”

“I got the big one.”

“I’m sick of waiting for trains.”

His sense of comedic timing was nowhere better on display than in the tense moments leading up to the brawl in the men’s room.

Mercy, played by Deborah Van Valkenburgh, objects to being led into the restroom by the Warriors’ warlord, Swan.

“Wait a minute,” she says. “I can’t go in there. It’s a men’s room.”

Vermin’s retort is “Are you kidding?” but Michos said the line lacked punch.

So he delivered the line but also improvised.

“I just reached out and grabbed her and she went flying and the house came down.”

He grew up in what was then a much more rural Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

He was interviewed at a playground and recreational field in the Town of Poughkeepsie in his old neighborhood.

He pointed to the field and recalled how he and his friends would play ball and use a beer can as first base, an empty beer case as second base “and, if we found one, a dead skunk for third base.”

It was a community of IBM and Central Hudson workers, professors and doctors. Growing up, he had no ambition to be a member of a gang much less exposure to one.

Still, Michos described himself as a punk.

“I had a chip on my shoulder. If people talked to me wrong, I hit them in the nose, hit them in the face. I hit teachers.”

He was raised Catholic but was less than observant. (He recalled being an altar boy and pilfering the sacramental wine to try to get a buzz.)

He said he had a spiritual awakening in the year that “The Exorcist” was released. Michos said he was fearful — “don’t ask me why or how” — of becoming demonically possessed.

“One night the presence of God came into my room and totally transformed me in a way I could never, ever imagine.”

He said he became a whole new person.

“I committed my life to Christ,” said Michos, who is a pastor at an evangelical church. “I tripped and fell a number of times but I picked myself up and I press on towards the mark.”

Michos, who enjoyed a career on stage and in TV, turned his attention from acting to being a husband and father. He and his wife have four children, including one who is developmentally disabled.

For 16 years, he served as a news director and anchor for a cable TV station that covered the Hudson Valley and then was communications director for former U.S. Rep. Nan Hayworth in her Washington, D.C., and district offices.

Now, among other things, he does political consulting.

But for better or for worse, Michos will long be remembered as Vermin.

He said he remains close to his castmates and has appeared at numerous reunion events but none that have caught on like the one taking place on Sunday.

He described the first time they got together in more than 20 years: “The minute we saw each other, it was like nothing had passed, not a beat had passed. We get together and we just care about each other.”

And as for the movie’s appealing legacy?

“We were likeable bad guys,” he said, citing a comparison of “The Warriors” to “The Wizard of Oz”: It’s all about trying to get home.

Yeah, we can dig it.

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Movies

“The Warriors” Hit Close to Home Growing Up in the Bronx

Clink, clink, clink, clink. “Warriors come out and playyyyy.”

This iconic line I will never forget from the 1979 movie “The Warriors.”

I was 15 years old when it hit theaters.

I was not able to see it during its original run as it was rated R and my parents would not take me, especially after the crazy events surrounding the screening of the movie were reported.

The local news was full of reports of violence and people being harassed by groups of youths that had seen the movie and left the theater all riled up and getting themselves into trouble.

What the hell was going on in this film? What was it all about?

The plot in a nutshell was that a prominent gang leader brings all the gangs in New York City together for a meeting in the Bronx to rally them to work together to take over the city.

During his rousing speech he is shot dead, and the Warriors are falsely blamed. The Warriors are a gang from Coney Island in Brooklyn, and now they must fight their way to their home turf as all the gangs are now out to get them.

It was not until 1980 that I finally watched the film in my living room on WHT, a rinky-dink pay-TV service that broadcast movies over UHF, a poor-man’s HBO that we had prior to our Bronx neighborhood being wired for cable.

My good friend and future AMR brother Silvio La Frossia watched the movie with me, and wow! What an impression it made on both of us! You can read his own recollections of the film over at The Mass Invasion.

The Warriors ruled. These guys were likeable, had great chemistry, were ethnically mixed, and of course, had cool leather vests as their uniform.

They were wrongfully accused of shooting Cyrus, the leader of the Gramercy Riffs, and they were the underdogs, having to fight their way through all the other gangs.

Who could ask for more to identify with these characters?

Although the movie played out like a comic book and seemed so much like fantasy, it probably was not far from the truth.

There were hundreds of gangs portrayed in this film, and at that time there were probably similar numbers of real gangs in New York City.

gang8b-2-web

I personally remember the Savage Skulls and the Black Spades in the neighborhoods I grew up in.

The gangs were real and caused a great deal of trouble and violence all around the city during the 1970s. My older brother was at that ripe age and he admitted to being actively recruited. Thankfully, he avoided making that commitment.

If being in a gang didn’t kill him, my Mom surely would have if he got involved in one.

The turf wars were real, but a lot of it had to do with protecting what was theirs.

The economic downturn of the ’70s had a lot to do with this. The police were non-existent and did not protect many of these neighborhoods, or maybe they were afraid to go into these areas.

The police in the movie had minimal impact on the outcome of the movie; they were faceless and ultimately inconsequential as the gangs took justice into their own hands at the end of the movie as the Warriors were exonerated and the Rogues paid for their misdeeds.

“The Warriors” was so much more than a movie; it was a history lesson that showed us what was really going on around us.

Silvio and I recognized that and to this day still hold that movie at a higher level than most movies we have seen. That movie rang true with us and continues to influence us in how we viewed the era when that movie was released.

The Warriors. The Cyclone. The Wonder Wheel. New York City icons forever.