Movies - TV
Why The Outsiders’ Original Cut Removed This Classic Scene
By VALERIE ETTENHOFER
Originally premiering in 1983, "The Outsiders" was rereleased in 2005 with 22 minutes of additional footage, reportedly at director Francis Ford Coppola's request.
The newer version, titled "The Outsiders: The Complete Novel," hewed more closely to S.E. Hinton’s book and reinstated a scene that Coppola regretted cutting from the original.
The scene features greaser Ponyboy (C. Thomas Howell) sharing a bed with his older brother Sodapop (Rob Lowe). In it, the pair hug, toss, and turn, and talk about life and love.
It's a shared moment of emotional and physical vulnerability from the boys whose lives would ultimately be torn apart by gang violence, yet it was conspicuously absent from the film.
Coppola said that the scene was cut due to "time constraints" imposed by the studio, but he also had concerns about “such a beautiful boy like Sodapop in bed, hugging his brother."
“It was only later when I took the film to be shown to my granddaughter's class that I realized the kids knew the book better than the film expressed," Coppola told EW.
"I understood that I was naive in my views," Coppola said. For the restored version of the film released decades later, Coppola says he "happily put back some of the scenes."