The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson

The film concludes by saying that in the question of the Cross and the Switchblade, the Cross proved stronger. However, during David's sermon, his message that no one can be labeled and Christ's death on the Cross reaches Nicky, and he stops the gangs from fighting. Nicky agrees with Big Cat, the leader of the rival Bishops, that they should rumble at the revival since no one would expect that. When David tries an attempt to reach out to all gang members in the area through a revival, the sheriff convinces the NYPD not to survey their neighborhood in order to have the gangs think they are being left alone. After Rosa is sober, she tries to convince Nicky that David comes to them out of love, but Nicky becomes more and more frustrated.

She confronts him at the Hector's church, where Hector's wife, Graciela, convinces Rosa to stay with them, while they stand vigil as she goes through difficult withdrawals. Nicky's ex-girlfriend, Rosa, asks Nicky to give her some money for her heroin addiction, and he offers to buy her all the junk she wants if she gets rid of Wilkerson. Cruz at first dismisses Wilkerson as a joke, then as a conspiracy to break up the Mau Maus, serving to only intensify his desire to be rid of David. David came to New York City from a central Pennsylvania small town (Philipsburg) with little money, and is put up in a small street chapel owned by Pastor Hector Gomez with a loving family who supports David in his work and offers to help with food and shelter. He encounters the Mau Maus, a gang led by president Israel (Dino Defilippi) and his 'warlord,' Nicky Cruz ( Erik Estrada), and David brings a message of hope to the angry youths. Guided by the streetwise Little Bo (Jo-Ann Robinson), David quickly learns about the neighborhood and how to approach the cynical juveniles. The film is based on the true story of David Wilkerson ( Pat Boone), a small-town preacher who gets caught in the shadows of a crime-ridden neighborhood in New York City. A meeting will particularly mark him, that of Nicky Cruz, a member of a street gang, the 'Mau maus'.

Alone and with little money, he will go to Brooklyn, sometimes at the risk of his life, to talk about Jesus with members of street gang. In 1958, pentecostal pastor David Wilkerson's of Assemblies of God is touched by an article in Life Magazine about seven teenagers who are members of a criminal gang. The film was based on a non-fiction book of the same name, The Cross and the Switchblade.

The Cross and the Switchblade is a 1970 crime film starring Pat Boone as David Wilkerson and Erik Estrada as Nicky Cruz, the teen gang member whose life was transformed by Wilkerson's ministry.

The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson