The Wanderers' throwback soundtrack coaxed its horny hooligans towards racial harmony

Nostalgia for the kinder, simpler, more innocent days of the ‘50s and ‘60s was rampant all through the bitter, cynical ‘70s. The decade was swarming with entertainment that doubled as fictionalized time capsules: American Graffiti, Happy Days, the music of Sha Na Na, Animal House, Grease. Even the soundtrack to Martin Scorsese’s modern-day crime story Mean Streets was littered with doo-wop numbers from the filmmaker’s youth.

The Wanderers is another ‘70s film that took us back to the pompadoured, Cadillac-crazy days of the early ‘60s. The movie is a streamlined version of Richard Price’s episodic 1974 novel of the same name, which told of a gang of Italian-American knuckleheads living in the Bronx, circa 1963.

Of course, director/co-writer Philip Kaufman (Invasion Of The Body Snatchers) assembled a soundtrack covered in ‘60s pop bops. “I chose the songs and Richard Price, who wrote the book, knew every song of that period,” Kaufman said in 2013. “It was right of his time. He gave me stacks of things and I went through them and there’s not really a score. I mean, there’s [Polish composer Krzysztof] Penderecki, but I didn’t hire a composer.”

With Kaufman carefully curating the tunes, the music isn’t just background fodder. Most of the songs provide ironic commentary. Since the movie is about rowdy, randy teens who grow up fast during the movie’s 117-minute length, the song Kaufman cheekily plays during the opening credits is Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons’ “Walk Like A Man.”

Since this is called The Wanderers, we obviously get Bronx native Dion’s “The Wanderer” during a scene where all the gang members defiantly walk through the neighborhood. Gang leader Richie (Ken Wahl) and his lieutenants whistle all through the walk, summoning their fellow members to come out from their respective tenements and get in formation.

For the most part, Richie and his pals are horny hooligans. When they’re not getting in scuffles with rival gangs like the hairless Baldies (classic surf rock like The Surfaris’ “Wipeout” and The Chantays’ “Pipeline” accompany these scenes), they get into creep mode by harassing ladies. After being wowed by the sight of buxom passersby (Lee Dorsey’s “Ya Ya” plays while Kaufman hits us with shots of faceless ladies wearing tight tops that show off their warhead bras), they take in a brief “titty-elbowing” session, where they pretend to bump into gals and cop a feel. This doesn’t work out well for pipsqueak member Joey (John Friedrich), who gets manhandled by a tall lady (Amazon stuntwoman Faith Minton) who isn’t falling for that. What’s the song that’s playing during this comic moment? “Big Girls Don’t Cry” by Frankie and the Seasons, of course.

Even when they’re tailing a girl in their car, they can’t help but get their doo-wop on. Matchstick-gnashing member Perry (the recently departed Porky’s castmate Tony Ganios) leads the crew in an a capella rendition of “Stranger Girl,” a number composed by Jim Youngs, who also plays MILF chaser Buddy.

The Seasons pop up once again in a party sequence where everybody’s dancing to “Sherry.” It starts off with The Angels’ “My Boyfriend’s Back,” as Richie tries to get to know boho gal Nina (Karen Allen) while Despie (Toni Kalem), his supposed girlfriend, jealously watches. Richie, Joey, and the girls all convene upstairs for a game of strip poker, with Smokey Robinson and the Miracles’ “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me” and The Shirelles’ Burt Bacharach-penned “Baby, It’s You” playing as both Richie and Joey get hot and bothered whenever Nina removes an article of clothing. We get The Shirelles again with “Soldier Boy,” which serves as mood music for a montage of teens (including Richie and Nina) making out. It’s also send-off music for the Baldies, who leave town after drunkenly pledging to become Marines.

It’s not all party tunes and doo-wop ditties. A couple of dramatic scenes are scored with somber, earnest classics. Ben E. King’s “Stand By Me” starts right when Richie discovers John F. Kennedy has been killed (the TV announcement comes at the same time King sings the memorable opening line: “When the night has come/And the land is dark”), forcing him to quietly get back together with a pregnant Despie. Richie sees Nina again, following her to a nightclub to hear a young musician with a guitar, a harmonica, and scruffy hair (you obviously know who this guy is) sing “The Times They Are A-Changin.” (That track doesn’t appear on the soundtrack album.) Even though he’s well-aware the future is coming and his badass bad-boy days will soon be a distant memory, Richie gets with his boys one last time to do a rambunctious rendition of “The Wanderer.”

The thing I notice about The Wanderers’ soundtrack is how the artists mostly hail from the East Coast, specifically New Jersey. (I’m guessing the Jersey cuts might’ve come from Bronx-born Price, who would later write novels set in Dempsey, a fictional Jersey town.) The Four Seasons were Newark natives, performing tunes co-written and produced by fellow Jersey boy Bob Crewe. (Co-writer Bob Gaudio came from the Bronx.) The Shirelles and The Angels were both Jersey-based acts. Even The Isley Brothers—whose iconic party starter “Shout” shows up as entrance music for the rival African-American gang the Del Bombers—moved from Ohio to the Garden State and launched T-Neck Records (named after lead singer Ron Isley’s Teaneck homebase).

When The Wanderers soundtrack hit record stores back in 1979, reviewers occasionally lumped it with the collection from More American Graffiti (which also included “My Boyfriend’s Back”). But it was also lauded for being a nifty compendium of multi-racial rarities. Bill King of The Atlanta Journal said it “doesn’t attempt to chronicle the changes in ‘60s music; rather, it presents an interesting mix of white and Black sounds from the 1961-63 period.” New York Daily News writer Martha Hume appreciated that it compiled classics that were hard to find at the time, “even on the ubiquitous ‘greatest hits’ collections you see advertised on late night TV.”

The Wanderers ultimately shows the unity and camaraderie that come when different cultures join forces. The chaotic climax has the Wanderers and the Bombers teaming up to rumble with demonic, Irish-Catholic goons the Ducky Boys. But, through the soundtrack, Kaufman and Price have all these immature, slur-singing ruffians listening to pale-skinned and brown-skinned artists alike, literally giving them the beautiful racial harmony their dumb asses eventually, finally discover for themselves.