The Lizzies are a group of female gang members from New York in the 1979 movie The Warriors. They don't give their individual names, but lure men into their lair promising sex and attempt to murder them.
Story[]
The Warriors is the story of a gang from Coney Island, that has been invited - along with all the other gangs of New York - to Van Cortlandt Park across the city in the Bronx see Cyrus, known as the “One and only”. Cyrus (Roger Hill) is the leader of a very powerful very well-organised gang known as the Gramercy Riffs.
The gangs are told that there is a truce between all the different gangs in the city and that the leaders of each gang are invited to come unarmed to see and hear the one and only Cyrus.
Cyrus wants has called on all the gangs to make a truce so that he can organize them into one large gang. There are some really freaky gangs and one of the most twisted is the Rouges which is led by Luther (David Patrick Kelly).
During Cyrus’s speech Luther shoots the “One and Only” dead. The crowd panics and Luther begins screaming that ‘the Warriors did it, The Warriors shot Cyrus’.
Cleon (Dorsey Wright) the leader of The Warriors is killed instantly by members of Gramercy Riffs.
Suddenly the police raid the gathering. All the gang members are running in every direction.
Now, the Warriors have to fight their way back to Coney Island while being hunted by all the other gangs of New York.
Along the way the Warriors get split up.
The trap is set!
After meeting a very twisted gang known as The Baseball Fury’s Ajax (James Remar) and Swan (Michael Beck) fight their way to safety only to have Ajax and very attractive lady sitting on a park bench in the middle of the night. The woman (Mercedes Ruehl) invites Ajax to join her and then begin to makeout.
However, Ajax, who is extremely aggressive starts to maul her. The woman is a cop, and she handcuffs Ajax to the bench and blows a whistle. The rest of her squad comes running and Ajax is beaten down with batons.
Mean while three other Warrior gang members Vermin (Terry Michos), Cochise (David Harris), and Rembrant (Marcelino Sánchez) arrive at a train station where they are approached by an all-female gang called the Lizzies.
They Lizzies never say their names. Vermin begins making out with one of the Lizzies (Kate Klugman) while two others Lizzies do a strange face to face dance. Cochise also begins to make out with one of the Lizzies. Rembrant is not sure what to make of the Lizzies, most of whom don’t seem to be that interested in men.
Suddenly one of the Lizzies bolt locks the door. Cochise’s play mate pulls a knife and Vermin’s girl pulls a gun an begins blasting away. She is a really bad shot and the trio all manage to escape by smashing through the door. The all escape without being slashed or shot.
The Lizzies lure the lost Warriors.
Trivia[]
- The Lizzies are partly based on the Greek race of female warriors known as the Amazon, from the Isle of Lesbos. They may also be partly based on the Greek myth of Sirens, mermaid like creatures that lured sailors to their deaths.
- The Warriors is based a 1965 novel by Sol Yurick, who based it on ancient Greek story about a group of warriors whose general was killed and they had to fight and negotiate their way back to their homeland near the sea.
- After serving in World War II, Yurick graduated from college and took a job with New York City's welfare department as a social investigator, a job he held until the early 1960s. It was here that he became familiar with children of welfare families, many of whom were "then called juvenile delinquents". Many of them belonged to fighting gangs numbered in the hundreds; they were veritable armies.
- The movie was based on the book Anabasis by the Greek professional soldier and writer Xenophon, who wrote the historical book in 370 BC.