Cooley High (1975)

23Sep08

Cooley High IMDB Link

Directed By: Michael Schultz

Written By: Eric Monte

Starring: Glynn Turman, Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs

High School movies, the ones that are done well capture that strange portion of your life where the community your in is almost like tribal warfare. It’s so embarrassing to look back on the traditions and the shit you did growing up but it also gives you a sense of normality as your shown that throughout America’s history, kids in every generation go through the same awkward process.

According to my Netflix package, Cooley High is considered the black American Graffiti. There are many films that were influenced by American Graffiti, where writers and directors look upon that strange part of life and try to capture it’s essence. Cooley High is based on the life of the writer Eric Monte who created a bunch of successful TV shows including “What’s Happening” and “Good Times”.

It tells the story of two friends, Preach and Cochise growing up in the poorest part of Chicago in the 60’s. The interesting thing about Cooley High and why many people view it as a classic is while it is a teen comedy it feels a lot more real. In American Graffiti, even though things are on the line nothing bad really happens. In Cooley High, they go for a joy ride in a stolen Cadillac in wacky chase scene but as a consequence they are picked up by the cops later.

Or take the scene where Preach’s mom comes home and starts yelling at him about how he got arrested and how he’s banging girls in the house. She tells him to go get the belt so she can whoop his ass but while she’s waiting she sits down and is so tired from her three jobs she falls asleep. When Preach comes down he looks like a little boy realizing how shitty he must make his mom feel while she works so hard to cloth and feed them and kisses her on the forehead not wanting to wake her up.

And Preach is played great by Glynn Turman. The only other thing I’ve seen him in is “The Wire” as Mayor Royce. I checked out his IMDB page and saw he’s worked a lot since then but seeing him play a role as well as he did in Cooley High makes me wonder why he wasn’t a bigger star at the time.

Like all the movies following American Grafitti, the soundtrack is laced with the hits of the time, these being Motown hits. I didn’t even know Boyz II Men were covering “It’s So Hard To Say Goodbye” until I heard it.

The only film I truly believe stands up to American Graffiti is Dazed & Confused. Cooley High is interesting to see, it is definitely a great recanting of the writer’s past with specific characters and traditions but I’m not sure if I would place it up as high as those two. The two other films are much more complex with multiple running story lines whereas Cooley High sticks to the dynamic of the two men. This isn’t a bad thing, I just don’t think it’s up there with the two classics.

I wish I could make all my favorite director’s make a high school movie. I mean what would Scorcese’s high school movie be like?

Filed under: Classic/Old, Comedy, Drama   |  1 Comment
Tags: Cooley High, high school movie, movie review