A rich fabric of comedy and tragedy, fantasy and farce, the film adaptation of Richard Price’s acclaimed first novel, The Wanderers was produced by writer Rose Kaufman with husband Philip Kaufman as director and released in 1979.
Set in the Bronx in 1963, this coming-of-age film follows a gang of Italian-American teenagers known as the Wanderers and their ongoing power struggles with each other, family, girlfriends, and rival gangs. The film features Ken Wahl, Karen Allen, Toni Kalem and Linda Manz complemented by a jukebox full of golden oldies like “Walk Like a Man” and “Big Girls Don’t Cry” by The Four Seasons; “My Boyfriend’s Back” by The Angels; “Baby It’s You” and “Soldier Boy” by The Shirelles; “Shout” by The Isley Brothers; and “Do You Love Me” by The Contours.
Some of the novel’s characters and stories were either changed or given retroactive continuity in the film, but the author publicly approved of the adaptation, saying, “I love that picture. It’s not my book, and I don’t care. The spirit is right, and the way Phil Kaufman directed it showed me another way of looking at my book.”
