chick flicks, love songs, and tearjerkers: The Outsiders

This 1983 film is based on the book of the same title "The Outsiders" written by SE Hinton. It is a book that many of us had to read at some point high school. A group of high school students got together and sent the book to director Francis Ford Coppola and told him that he was the director that they would most like to see direct this in a movie version. He read the book and was so touched by the story that he decided to make a movie out of it.

This movie was EVERY teenage girl's dream as every known and soon to be known teen heartthrob/brat packer was in this movie. Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Emilio Estevaz, Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Ralph Macchio, and C Thomas Howell were all in the movie as Greasers and Diane Lane and Leif Garrett rounded out the Soc's.

This movie shows how the two groups of boys fought one another because of social class. One fight gets out of hand and a Soc ends up killed. C Thomas Howell and Ralph Macchio take it on the run to avoid the law, with the help of Matt Dillon. They ultimately redeem themselves by saving a church full of burning children.

**Spoiler alert**Ralph Macchio ends up severely burned from the church fire and dies as a result. This causes Matt Dillon to go over the edge and commit a robbery he is killed by the police for. C Thomas Howell realizes he needs to go back and mend fences with his brothers, Rob Lowe and Patrick Swayze and does. There is a final fight between the two groups and the Greasers win but there is a moment after losing Ralph Macchio and Matt Dillon that they realize that they did not really win.

The first scene are various outtakes from the movie set to the song "Fields of Gold" sung by Eva Cassidy