‘The Outsiders’ on Aug. 6 at Glen Drive In, thanks to South Glens Falls

Chronicle Managing Editor Cathy DeDe writes: As reported earlier in The Chronicle, The Glen Drive-In will host a special screening of the 1983 movie The Outsiders on Wednesday, Aug. 6. Showtime is 8:15 p.m. Tix: $13, $8 child, at the gate.

South Glens Falls middle school English teachers Olivia Sutton and Victoria Mason reached out to Glen Drive-In owner Brett Gardner to show the movie.

Based on the 1967 book by S.E. Hinton, it’s been a staple of the seventh-grade curriculum at South Glens Falls for more than a decade, they said.

Mrs. Mason tells The Chronicle, “I told Brett that I was gonna get there at six o’clock because I want to get in and just get stationed. I feel that he’s going to have a big line of cars going in. He said if they have to open both screens, they open both, and that he can fit 1,000 people.”

Mrs. Sutton said, “We are encouraging people to come in their old cars and dress like the Outsiders. Let’s bring Tulsa 1967 to the Glen Twin Drive-In on August 6!”

Of The Outsiders, student Liliana Galusha told The Chronicle, “It’ll be my favorite book forever, and my favorite movie.

Harper Potter said, “I’m so excited. I’m so used to watching on a small screen, or the Promethean board (at school) or my TV. It’s just gonna be, like, on a big old screen right in front of me, and I’m gonna be in public, probably crying.”

Madelyn McQuinn said, “I don’t have a favorite character. I liked to see them develop. The way it was written, it made me want to know more about it.”

Lyric Holmes, said, “My favorite character was Dallas Winston,” the tough, tragic greaser played by Matt Dillon. “He’s just a really bold personality.”

2024 South High grad Sophia Belden says, “It’s one of the only things I remember from seventh grade, let alone middle school. I loved that book, and then the movie. I’m a musical theater major, so now it’s on Broadway, it just re-sparked all of that again. It’s such a good story.”

Their teachers said, “It resonates, decades later, with themes on social class and stereotypes — ‘Greasers’ and ‘Socials,’ both proud in their way and limited by their class and outside definitions.

“The story reinforces that idea of just discovering who you want to be, which they’re right in the middle of now. In middle school, you are one person, but when you go into high school, you start this evolution. So I think that’s why the novel is great for seventh grade.”

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola, The Outsiders cast features an all-star company of at-the-time budding actors Matt Dillon, Ralph Macchio, C. Thomas Howell, Patrick Swayze, Rob Lowe, Tom Cruise, Emilio Esteves, Diane Lane, Leif Garrett.

Also on the August 6 double bill: The Lost Boys, 1987 horror-comedy starring Corey Haim, Kiefer Sutherland, Jason Patric, Corey Feldman and Jami Gertz.

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