Let's see...in May of 1983 my sophomore year of high school at Riverdale was heading into its final month, the weather was warming up, and the Murfreesboro population was under 40,000 then. I was still living on Jimmy C. Newman's farm which was 15 or so miles from town. My main preoccupation was music, but television and movies still were a large part of my free time too. I didn't get to see many movies in the theatre during these years because of where I lived, but this week's flashback does have one I saw on the big screen during its release. So away we go.
The Martin Twin has a couple of R rated flicks. If you are a long time reader of this blog's Film Flashbacks you will know that I didn't get to see either of these movies in the theatre since my parents were not about to let me see an R rated movie. If we had continued living in the Mitchell-Neilson area of town instead of moving to the country it is very likely that I would have snuck into at least one of these films since I would have been close enough to walk to Jackson Heights.
I would have wanted to see Bad Boys (which I would see a few years later on VHS) since Sean Penn was starring in it. It's your basic youth crime juvenile detention film, but extremely well crafted. A palpable sense of danger and unease grips you when viewing it. Eric Gurry almost steals the show as Horowitz. Esai Morales and Ally Sheedy also star in this one. If you have never seen it and want some thrills I recommend it.
The other film on offer at the Martin Twin is a slasher movie that due to production issues took almost 3 years to make. An actress is assigned to an asylum to do research for her next role, but is left there instead while 6 new actresses audition to replace her. Then they start being murdered. Who is killing them? Meanwhile the original actress assigned to the asylum had escaped. Perhaps she is the slasher. I guess you'd have to watch the movie to find out. I've never seen it and the trailer makes me want to keep it that way. Just look at that wild mask!
The Marbro Drive-In has a double header of action b-movies. By 1983 the Marbro was only showing movies on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights. Lucky for us we landed on a Sunday for this flashback so we could go to the drive if we wanted. Flash And The Firecat is about a gang of of criminal dune buggy drivers. I haven't seen this film but it looks fun.
This brings us to the final film playing on this day in 1983: The Outsiders is at Cinema One. It was a joy to see this on the same big screen I had seen Star Wars on back in 1977. This dreamlike adaptation of the S.E. Hinton book was directed by Francis Ford Coppola and starred a veritable who's who of young Hollywood. C. Thomas Howell, Ralph Macchio, Matt Dillon, Patrick Swayze, Emilio Estevez, Rob Lowe, Diane Lane, and Tom Cruise. Plus you get Leif Garrett as the worst Soc of them all and if that wasn't enough there's Tom Waits in the cast too. This became the movie to show in high school during my junior and senior years yet I never tired of it. It's still a film that I watch every so often now.
That's all for this week's flashback. I'll be back here next Friday where I think we'll go back even farther in time.
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