Watch ‘The Warriors’ Recreate Their Last Subway Ride Home
Most of the cast members that made up the titular street gang in the 1979 cult classic The Warriors reunited on the Q Train on September 13th to take one last ride together to Coney Island, where hundreds waited at a fan-organized event celebrating the Walter Hill-directed film. “These subways are different than they were in 1978,” actor Michael Beck, who played the head-Warrior-in-charge Swan in the film, toldRolling Stone on the voyage to the Boardwalk.
David Harris (Cochise), Dorsey Wright (Cleon), Terry Michos (Vermin) and Thomas G. Waites (Fox) were also on hand for the celebration, with the original cast greeted at Coney Island by scores of film fans and similarly vested “gangs” who were drawn together by the movie. “Basically, this is a social club for Coney Island,” one attendee said. “We started it for the youth though, because of all the gang violence that was happening in our town and what not. We tried to get all the youth to join us instead of joining real gangs.”
Motorcycle clubs have also found inspiration in the movie that stresses brotherhood over any odds; remarkably, even the Warriors actors themselves have remained close 37 years later.
In addition to appearances by the cast (who had come out to pla-yyyy-ayy), the event featured small children dressed up like Baseball Furies, dozens of biceps inked with Warriors tattoos, a guy who touted himself as “the Pope of Greenwich Village, the Pride of the West Side” and attendees from as far away as Scotland.
“I just love being here with all the fans. I see kids coming here, eight years old, and I go ‘How do you even know about this movie,'” Beck told Rolling Stone. “I found out something today. One of the stunt guys who played one of the Furies, he came up to me and told me, ‘Thirty-seven years ago, you broke three of my ribs with a baseball bat.’ I told him I was sorry. I didn’t mean to.” Michos added, “It’s a phenomenon I didn’t expect, but I’m very happy.”
