Great documentary on NY Gangs made in the summer of 79. Rugged stuff.
Just watched a really clear AVI version taken off VHS.
Divided up into 8 episodes.

http://au.youtube.com/watch?v=MFeqKAIHAYw

Synopsis from IMDb

Extremely Authentic Portrayal of South Bronx NYC Gangs...
"An intimate look at life on the streets for young teens gang members. Black and Latino teenagers of the South Bronx struggle to make it on the streets. This is Pre Hip - Hop, Pre Rap, and before Break Dancing took over the youth culture of the Bronx. It is right before the advent of Graffiti writers/bombers and Break Dance Crews that took off and became the new black culture a few years later. The film takes place in the summer of 1979. Shockingly realistic interviews with gang members of the infamous Savage Nomads and the savage skulls. Amazingly this authentic documentary does not contain any of the normal pitfalls that befuddle today's more exploitive investigative reports on gangs of the " 60mins." type. Filmmaker Gary Weis of SNL and "Ruddles" fame manages to let the kids speak for themselves. Most of the footage are real interviews. A few scenes are reannactments of stories as told by some of the younger street kids. A rare glimpse into late 70's New York towards the end of the infamous South Bronx Gangs. Anyone who is a fan of "The Warriors" would appreciate this film. The documentary shows many sides of the mainly Puerto Rican / Lation community of the South Bronx including. reformed gang members, current gang members, the police, and the community leaders who try and reach out to them. A film like this is simply unable to be made today!"

Great doc. I'll watch anything underground that takes place from the mid 60's to early 80's, but I love NYC documentaries the most.

C.

Sweet thanks, I've been wanting to see this for a while but could never find it.

I despise watching anything longer than a short clip on youtube, so if anyone wants this on dvd-r, this place carries it for $12.

http://www.asylum00.com/e.htm

very cool documentary..brooklyn used to look like a real shithole

Bronx is up, Brooklyn is down. Both have their seedy sections. I grew up in the Bronx during this era and I have to say that the Bronx wasn't as bad as it was portrayed. These were pockets like the south bronx which today isn't that great. The Bronx is a great neighborhood though. Tons of diversity if that's your thing. BX forever!

I guess it still has some shady parts,but it looked like vietnam in the film..Iv'e been to NY but only manhattan, I need to go chill in the bronx

I've been on the hunt for a copy of this for a while, but I'm def not watching it in youtube segments.

When I was reading up on it, I saw a VHS copy listed on Amazon for $300

great doc., youtube segments = no problem for me

Thanks for the groovy recco, dead-sy!

First this film is excellent, but some of the lines were straight out of cliche city. It was like they were trying to do their own gang-based version of Style Wars. But the scenes/feel were spot on. A quality release would be welcome.


On Amazon anyone can set the price to whatever they want. Doesn't mean much market-wise. Fleabay is much better to gauge value.


True enough. And yeah, this whole film had nothing to do with Brooklyn—unless I was braindead for the part where they explicitly mentioned Brooklyn—since it was all set in the South Bronx.

Brooklyn had some seriously bombed out parts. Deep in Coney Island was scary and had abandoned buildings. Even nowadays there are vacant lots with maybe one thin walk-up building on a corner.

Still it didn't faze me growing up in Brooklyn to see weird stuff like that. What does crack me up is nowadays newbies to NYC still think it's NYC in the 1980s in their minds, so they see/hear something they freak. Like I had cops on my roof two days ago since someone climbed up there at 3:30am. No real big deal at the time and even now, but I tell some co-workers they think it's "scary".

Whatever.

I actually had to call cops more when I lived in Madison, Wisconsin to deal with drunk frat boys and recovering addicts that lived next door. In NYC? Only once in about 10-15 years.

This pre-dated Style Wars.
Style Wars was released in 1983, even though some footage and interviews were probably shot a bit earlier.

Yeah, Hope it gets an offical re-release

Very cool doc, enjoyed it a lot - sometimes you just have to bear with youtube segments I guess... Funny this was made by the same guy that also directed THE RUTLES!