Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (1979)

Rock ‘n’ Roll High School (USA, 1979) 93 min color DIR: Allan Arkush (with uncredited assistance from Joe Dante). PROD: Michael Finnell. SCR: Richard Whitley, Russ Dvonch, Joseph McBride. STY: Allan Arkush, Joe Dante. DOP: Dean Cundey. CAST: P.J. Soles, Vincent Van Patten, Clint Howard, Dey Young, Mary Woronov, Paul Bartel, Alix Elias, Dick Miller, Grady Sutton. (New World Pictures)

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Once upon a time, Roger Corman wanted to make a high school movie with disco as the theme. Someone stepped up to the plate and told Roger that there is another musical trend he should be sure to exploit… the burgeoning punk scene. If this was instead made with, say, Tavares or The Village People instead of The Ramones, it would probably have the marginal interest of something like Roller Boogie. Not only did this movie become a huge drive-in hit, it also had mass appeal for teenagers who discovered the movie on videocassette a few years later. It could be said that this movie singlehandedly introduced punk to a lot of people in certain demographics who would otherwise have been unexposed to it for some time.

The spunky actress P.J. Soles has the role of her career as high school student Riff Randell who is obsessed with The Ramones. She is such a free spirit who clashes with the no-nonsense policy of principal Miss Togar (Mary Woronov, never looking more spinster-ish). And since Miss Togar has also put a ban on rock and roll music, especially that of The Ramones, Riff is Public Enemy Number One. Paul Bartel is the prissy science teacher who is soon won over to Riff’s ways. Clint Howard is a joy as the hustler Eaglebauer who grooms the dorky Tom Roberts (Vincent Van Patten) into wooing the wallflower Kate Rambeau (Dey Young, a lovely actress who should have gone on to bigger things). Naturally, Tom is stuck on Riff, but if he watched WKRP, he would know that women are foxes underneath those glasses. Either way, the only man (or, men) for Riff is four guys in sunglasses, matching haircuts and torn jeans.

The film is a delightful live-action cartoon, full of bright colours and surreal jokes- it seems like a 1970s answer to The Monkees’ TV show. Since nearly every scene is crammed with fun visual ideas (Clint Howard having an office in the men’s room; subtitles describing the Ramones’ lyrics), the entire movie is a comic book that evokes a delightfully wonky universe. (My favourite is the paper airplane that travels like the fabled magic bullet through the high school… even in and out of two lockers.) Having said that, this sensibility is possibly all wrong for the nihilism that we commonly associate with punk music. Yet, in true “punk” anti-authoritarian fashion, the film culminates into a standoff in the school, where Riff leads a teenage revolt against the uptight Togar (and the great Dick Miller has a cameo as the police chief). This conflict leads into explosions and chaos… yet one gets the sense they aren’t even punished for their actions. That’s rebellion. One cannot imagine a more gleeful film about anarchy.

Although while filming, P.J. Soles was actually terrified of The Ramones, this quartet doesn’t appear menacing on camera. Even with their leering gestures while singing “I Want You Around” to Riff, wearing only a bath towel and fantasizing about them being in her bedroom (surely any uptight parent’s nightmare), they still come off as cuddly as another fab four. (In fact, this scene is an early ancestor of rock videos.) This is a movie that makes punk music approachable for the mainstream audience, all while capturing its anarchic spirit at the same time.

Although Allan Arkush is the official director, an uncredited Joe Dante (his partner on Hollywood Boulevard) had helped with some scenes while Arkush was recovering from exhaustion. And yet, ironically, this film anticipates Dante’s future work, in its comic book nightmare that takes potshots at the all-American dream. The cartoonish anarchy of Gremlins and The Burbs is all here.

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Originally published in The Roger Corman Scrapbook.