The Warriors (1979) is an American action thriller directed by Walter Hill, based on Sol Yurick’s 1965 novel of the same name. The film follows the Warriors, a street gang from Coney Island, after they travel to a massive gang summit in the Bronx. When charismatic gang leader Cyrus is murdered, the Warriors are falsely blamed and must fight their way back across New York City while rival gangs and the police hunt them through the night. The film stars Michael Beck, James Remar, Dorsey Wright, Brian Tyler, David Harris, Tom McKitterick, Marcelino Sánchez, Terry Michos, Deborah Van Valkenburgh and David Patrick Kelly. With its stylised gangs, night-time subway journeys, comic-book structure and heightened version of 1970s New York, The Warriors became one of the most distinctive cult films of its era.
The Warriors was filmed across New York City, using Manhattan, Brooklyn and Queens to create a long, dangerous night journey from the Bronx back to Coney Island. Coney Island is the Warriors’ home territory and appears in the film’s opening and final scenes, with the Wonder Wheel and the amusement-area landscape giving the gang its strongest visual identity. Although the gang summit is supposed to take place in the Bronx, the conclave was filmed in Riverside Park on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, which also appears later during the confrontation with the Baseball Furies. The film makes heavy use of New York’s subway system, but often reshapes the city’s real geography for dramatic effect. Hoyt-Schermerhorn Streets station in Brooklyn was used for platform scenes representing both 96th Street and Union Square, while the 72nd Street subway entrance on Broadway was also dressed as 96th Street. Other New York locations connected to the film include Union Square, West 100th Street, the Firemen’s Memorial on Riverside Drive, New Utrecht Avenue/62nd Street in Brooklyn, Astoria Studios and various streets and elevated train areas. This gives The Warriors a deliberately mythic version of New York: not a geographically precise route, but a stylised nocturnal city of subway tunnels, parks, empty streets, gang territories, amusement rides and final escape toward the beach at Coney Island.
Deno’s Wonder Wheel
Deno’s Wonder Wheel has appeared in The Warriors, Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, He Got Game, Cloverfield, Men in Black 3, Mr. Robot and many more.
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