PURPLE FURY

<p><strong>Making movies is a lot like life - a swirling chaotic clusterf*ck.</strong></p><p><br></p><p>With these opening words Rob Ryder grabs you by the scruff jacks you into a subway car and starts spitting out Warriors stories one after another as that D train the 6th Avenue Express hurtles into the night.</p><p><br></p><p>It's the summer of 1978 and Ryder's been hired onto <em>The Warriors</em> as a P.A. then quickly bumped up to location scout. Six weeks later a stuntman smashes up his leg and Ryder is suddenly a Baseball Fury. A weird turn of events - what with that purple make-up and long black wig and Yankees uniform...</p><p><br></p><p><strong><em>PURPLE FURY: Rumbling with the Warriors</em> is fast smart and funny. Not your typical glamorous movie memoir -</strong></p><p><br></p><ul><li>On my first day I opened the front passenger door to a van stuck out my hand to the Teamster behind the wheel and said Hi. I'm Rob Ryder. His reply - So what?</li></ul><p><br></p><ul><li>Just that fast Ryder finds himself caroming across Brooklyn looking for a street to blow up a car. (Without pissing off the neighbors.)</li></ul><p><br></p><ul><li>Slogging up and down Manhattan searching out a giant grimy bathroom for the Warriors/Punks fight. (Paramount eventually had to build one.)</li></ul><p><br></p><ul><li>Escaping a brawl with some old-school Coney Island gangsters over a pair of giant bolt-cutters. (They never got them back.)</li></ul><p><br></p><p>This book is no scholarly tome - but a cold plunge into the hot mess of real-life movie production - Ryder rough-shodding you into the spooky depths of Riverside Park or the stink and grime and squealing of trains in the NYC subways.</p><p><br></p><p>And just when New York's becoming all too much you find yourself yanked across the country to Los Angeles - the land of milk and honey - where Ryder found work as a screenwriter and sports production specialist.</p><p><br></p><p>These Hollywood interludes include the likes of Whoopi Goldberg Tommy Lee Jones Shaquille O'Neal Steve Martin and other (un)savory characters.</p><p><br></p><p><strong>But it's always back to New York where <em>The Warriors</em> barrels along</strong> Ryder offering insights and inside dope with each new set-up.</p><p><br></p><p>After the Warriors/Furies bat fights director Walter Hill makes Ryder a Punk in the subway bathroom brawl. 16 gangbangers in an enclosed space shooting one of the greatest bare-knuckled fight scenes of all time.</p><p><br></p><p>Then all too soon this train screeches to a halt - Stillwell Avenue Station - end of the line - Coney Island. Where you're dumped out onto the platform feeling a lot like the Warriors did - battered bruised but still standing. And weirdly exhilarated.</p>