Rock 'n' Roll High School


Rock 'n' Roll High School is a 1979 American musical comedy film directed by Allan Arkush, produced by Michael Finnell, and starring P. J. Soles, Vince Van Patten, Clint Howard, and Dey Young. The film featured the punk rock group Ramones.

Plot

The movie is set in 1980. Vince Lombardi High School keeps losing principals to nervous breakdowns because of the students' love of rock 'n' roll and their disregard for education. The leader of the students, Riff Randell, is the biggest Ramones fan at school. She waits in line for three days to get tickets to see the band, hoping to meet Joey Ramone so she can give him a song she wrote for the band, "Rock 'n' Roll High School".
When the tyrannical Principal Togar takes her ticket away, Riff and her best friend Kate Rambeau have to find another way to meet their heroes—by winning a radio contest. When Miss Togar and a group of parents attempt to burn a pile of rock records, the students, joined by the Ramones overthrow the teachers and hall monitors to take over the high school, with Miss Togar asking the musicians "Do your parents know you're Ramones?" When the police are summoned and demand that the students evacuate the building, they do so, but then the students and the Ramones burn down the school as a final act of youthful rebellion.

Cast

Roger Corman, executive producer of the film, was looking to produce a modern teen film similar to the ones he made in his early career during the 1960s, with the focus on current music of the time. The initial title Disco High was selected for a story idea from Allan Arkush and Joe Dante. A script was developed by Richard Whitley, Russ Dvonch, and Joseph McBride. During this time, the film went through several different title changes including Heavy Metal Kids and Girl's Gym. Arkush directed the majority of the film, but Dante also helped when Arkush was suffering from exhaustion.
Corman originally wanted Cheap Trick or Todd Rundgren to play the band, but due to a conflict of schedules, he was forced to find an alternative. The Ramones were suggested by Paul Bartel, one of the actors in the film.
The genesis for the plot was a favorite story told to the film's original writer by his father, Raymond E. McBride of the Milwaukee Journal, who staged a walkout from his Superior Central High school in the 1920s.
The film was shot on the campus of the defunct Mount Carmel High School in South Central Los Angeles, that had been closed in 1976. The actual demolition of the school was used in the end of the film. The explosion of the school was so great that many on the set were scared away by the blast and, temporarily, would not return. Another location was at Mira Costa High School in Manhattan Beach, California. The American football uniforms and cheerleading outfits were those from MCHS.

Release

The film was originally released to theaters on August 24, 1979.

Home media

Rock 'n' Roll High School was originally released on VHS by Warner Home Video in 1983, and was later released on VHS in 1996 by New Horizons Home Video. One year later, in 1997, it was released on DVD by Lumivision. A second DVD release occurred in 1999 from Slingshot. Shortly after Joey Ramone's death in 2001, a third DVD release came out from New Concorde. The movie was released on DVD again in 2005 by Buena Vista Home Entertainment. DVDs were released in the PAL format by Umbrella Entertainment in 2003 and again in 2007.
The film is a part of Shout! Factory's Roger Corman Cult Classics series, reissued on DVD in May 2010. Shout! Factory released the film with exclusive content on Blu-ray on May 11, 2010 and again on November 19, 2019 with a new 4K restoration.

Soundtrack

A soundtrack album on Sire/Warner Bros. Records was released around the same time, but it included only a limited number of songs from the film. The two main Ramones songs in the film—the title song and "I Want You Around"—were recorded by Ed Stasium but remixed by Phil Spector for the soundtrack album. The original Ed Stasium mixes were not issued until the 1988 compilation album Ramones Mania and the 1999 compilation album , respectively.
Other songs appearing in the film include the following:
As well as the following songs by the Ramones:
Rock 'n' Roll High School received generally positive reviews and has an 81% rating at Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 26 film critics. Rock 'n' Roll High School did well enough that Arkush and Whitley followed it up with a sequel, Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever in 1991. This sequel was not as well received as its predecessor, as it received mixed to negative reviews, earning a 4.9/10 on iMDb and a 2.5/5 on Letterboxd.

Remake

On July 31, 2008, it was announced that actor/writer Alex Winter had been hired to script a remake of the film for Howard Stern's production company.