The Wanderers (1979)

The high school scene of the Bronx in 1963 is ruled by rival gangs. The Wanderers are the Italians-only gang, ruled by a group of streetwise, fast-talkin' boys looking for good times and pretty girls in the streets of their tight-knit neighborhood. This charming vignette of 1960s Bronx life, set to the bopping music of the era, follows the lives of boyhood friends and fellow Wanderers Richie (Ken Wahl), Joey (John Friedrich), Turkey (Alan Rosenberg), and newcomer Perry (Tony Ganios) as they fight their local competition, the Baldies, a group of menacing bald-headed toughies, and struggle to make it to a big football rumble with the slick Del Bombers, the local rival black gang. Along the way, Richie is forced to face the repercussions of a romance with a local Mafia daughter (Toni Kalem) while Perry and Joey realize the truth about their hard-living parents (including Olympia Dukakis as Joey's mother). All the while the boys carouse and party at their neighborhood hangouts, living life on the edge while struggling to avoid the other gangs. THE WANDERERS, directed by Philip Kaufman (who later went on to direct THE RIGHT STUFF and THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF BEING), is a simultaneously nostalgic and bittersweet vision of street life in 1960s New York, exploring the hardships of growing up on the streets and protecting gang members at any cost while facing the future and losing childhood innocence. The soundtrack features classic tunes by Dion, the Shirelles, the Four Seasons, the Angels, and others.