<Li> Tom Waits as Buck Merrill </Li> <P> Francis Ford Coppola had not intended to make a film about teen angst until Jo Ellen Misakian, a school librarian from Lone Star Elementary School in Fresno, California, wrote to him on behalf of her seventh and eighth grade students about adapting The Outsiders . When Coppola read the book, he was moved not only to adapt and direct it, but to follow it the next year by adapting Hinton's novel Rumble Fish . The latter film's cast also included Matt Dillon, Diane Lane, and Glenn Withrow . </P> <P> The film was shot on location in Tulsa, Oklahoma . Coppola filmed The Outsiders and Rumble Fish back - to - back in 1982--a newspaper, used to show a story about the three greasers saving the kids in The Outsiders, includes a real story from 1982 regarding the death of a man hit by a train in Boston . He wrote the screenplay for the latter while on days off from shooting the former . Many of the same locations were used in both films, as were many of the same cast and crew members . The credits are shown at the beginning of the film in the style normally found in a published play . </P> <P> Coppola's craving for realism almost led to disaster during the church - burning scene . He pressed for "more fire", and the small, controlled blaze accidentally triggered a much larger, uncontrolled fire, which a downpour doused . </P>

Where did they film the movie the outsiders