For someone who has read the book, can someone tell me if they explain a little more about the bad guys like what was their back story and why were they such pricks to begin with? I remember in the movie the leader of the pack Lawson was about to say something in class and it started out with "maybe you were unaware but my old man used to"... and gets cut off by Jim.
shareIn the original story the greasers were much more vile than their movie counterparts. They deliberately murdered Wayne in cold-blood--Vinnie stabbed him in the heart and Lawson stuck him in the groin. They got off thanks to alibis provided by family (more on that later), and were killed six months afterwards during a police chase--their hot rod ran off the road and crashed into a power transformer.
Jim Norman had nothing to do with their deaths.
Vinnie "the Viper" Corey was the ringleader, not Lawson.
He was as Nicholas Sadler portrayed him in the film--the quieter of the three, more brooding while Robert Lawson and David Garcia (their original names in the source material) were usually the ones whooping it up.
The only mention of family was Vinnie's mother who actually provided an alibi for him the day of the murder. An interesting little detail to ponder--is she complicit in the crime, or one of those types who is simply in denial over her son's anti-social behavior?
Another interesting little detail is that Vinnie claims to have put "the hex" on young Jim, which offers at least a vague explanation as to how these goons are able to cheat death. Perhaps witchcraft he learned from the aforementioned mother?
As for the others, Robert Rusler's portrayal of the Lawson character was pretty much dead on. He came off as an affable smart-ass in the story just as he did in the movie. As for differences between the two versions, in the story Robert Lawson was a sidekick not the leader. He also had a distinguishable red birthmark on his chin. Also Lawson, not David, seemed to be the one with the high-pitched annoying giggle.
The character of David Garcia was the muscle of the group--described as a fat, hulking brute of a boy. Bentley Mitchum portrayed his character as loud and obnoxious, and that's pretty accurate to the source material. Garcia was certainly the loudest, hollering insults, and had the foulest mouth out of all of them. In the story, he also had a nervous twitch--an eyelid that would jitter up and down.
Lastly, the sidekick in the story was named Charlie Sponder as opposed to Mueller. His nickname was Bleach. He had weird, orange colored hair because they say he bleach his hair with Clorox, then tried to dye it back and it came out orange. Not much else is revealed about this guy except that the old policeman says he became a career army man after he got a girl pregnant. Sounds like he turned out all right as opposed to the self-loathing bum his film counterpart became. In the story, Vinnie says "Bleach was always a drag" and adds "he's nothing". He's only seen in flashbacks and has zero involvement in the final confrontation between Jim and the boys.
The order in which they appeared was slightly different. Lawson came back first to replace Billy. David Garcia came back to replace Kathy. Finally, Vinnie came back to replace Chip who left school.
Interestingly enough, the greasers in the story came back wearing then-modern era clothing and hairstyles like tractor boots and long hair.