Cooley High

This this coming of age dramedy set in Chicago in the early 60's, we follow a group of highschool friends as they navigate through the ups and downs of their lives. The two central characters are Leroy "Preach" Jackson (Turman) and his best friend Richard "Cochise" Morris (Hilton-Jacobs.) Both of these boys have promising futures. Preach is a great writer but a lazy student, and Cochise has just received a college scholarship for basketball. When they're not hanging out at the local diner shooting craps with their friends, or hanging out at a friends house or chasing girls, they're skipping school, riding the trains through Chicago or going to quarter parties on the weekends.

Things go wrong when Preach and Cochise make the mistake of getting involved with two hoods and go joyriding in a stolen car. The police pursue them and they are arrested. But thanks to the efforts of a concerned teacher (SNL's Garrett Morris) they are released. But the two hoods are not, and vow to get revenge on Preach and Cochise, thinking they blamed the whole thing on them.

This movie is very episodic, but it still works because thats what life is, a series of episodes. Some funny, some sad, some romantic, some bizarre. The film never gets boring because all the characters are so well played and realistic, and the situations are all believable and relatable. Like Preach romantically pursuing a beautiful girl, or a party turning violent when some asshole decides to start a fight, or dealing with a bratty younger sibling. But even when a situation isn't personally relatable, like the guys pretending to be undercover cops to con a hooker out of some money so they could get all their friends into a movie, the sequence is still hilarious.

'Cooley High' was the basis for the classic 70's sitcom 'What's Happenin!' which aired on ABC from 1976-1979. Even though the show is most famous for the character Rerun, he is not in this film, nor is there any character remotely like him. The humor of that show was very broad, but still funny. The humor of 'Cooley High' is truer to life, and thus more entertaining.

Additionally, the soundtrack is wonderful. Classic songs from that period by Diana Ross & The Supremes, The Temptations, Martha & the Vandellas, and Smokey Robinson play throughout the film, adding to the fun, youthful, exuberant tone of the film.

Takes place in and around the Cabrini-Green projects on Chicago's Near North Side. Cooley High was a real school that was demolished in the '80s. The interiors, though were filmed in Providence-St. Mel's several miles away. This film is a classic, and if you aren't hip to it, then either you've been living in a cave or just awakened from a 25 year coma. The stellar cast features Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs, fresh from "Claudine", veteran of stage and screen Glynn Turman, pre-SNL Garrett Morris, Cynthia Davis (who seemed to disappear soon after the film was released), Steven Williams (currently of "Linc's), Corin Rogers and Jackie Taylor, who has made a name for herself as a writer, producer and director in Chicago theatre. This film also marked the screen debut of Robert Townsend. (He had two lines).

This movie seems to always be compared to "American Graffiti" and, given that both end in a similar "Where are they now?" montage, feature a high level of period pop music and are generally show teenagers running around, having fun and encountering mishaps, it's fair to say that to some extent the film was intended as a black "American Graffiti". "American Graffiti" was an iconic and hugely popular phenomenon, and given that the title has 'American' in it but it essentially a story of only the white American experience, once can see how blacks might have desired a movie that could capture their own experiences during those magic moments as youth comes to an end.

"Cooley High" is also something of an answer to its white counterpart, though: simply by showing a typical black teenager experience in 1962 it is going to have to make some kind of social commentary. In "American Graffiti" the high crimes are drag racing and minors buying booze, while we see decidedly rougher characters in "Cooley High". The only two who stand out as three-dimensional are the leads, Cochise and Preach, but they have more depth than any of the characters in "Graffiti". Unfortunately, the other characters in the movie fall flat and you'll be very lucky if, after your first viewing, you remember the names of even half of them before they flash on the screen in the final sequence.

Cochise is the smart and college-bound student whose best friend Preach, despite being no less intelligent, seems to be destined to fail. Much of the movie is devoted to their high-spirited teenage adventures, in the spirit of "Graffiti", and the movie is entertaining enough as the gang skips school to go the zoo, crashes a party, inadvertently starts a brawl in a movie theater, and so on. Things pick up, though, and the final minutes of the film how the consequences of their fun in the first hour.

This movie is interesting and I'm glad it was made as a black counterpoint to "American Graffiti". However, the characters aren't quite as memorable in "Coolie High", and the stories just aren't as clever and fun either. This isn't to say "Coolie High" fails, it's just that "American Graffiti" had some pretty brilliant stories which it would be hard for any movie to equal. One exception is the romantic scene between Preach and Brenda which, although comic in nature, utterly transcends any racial boundaries and is a wonderfully honest depiction of the inherent awkwardness of the situation, something the audience can relate to far more honestly than the typical confident and lustful love scenes we usually see in movies.

The movie is uneven and, to this reviewer, can't quite reach the highs of the movie it is providing a counterpoint to. Still, I can very much relate to "American Graffiti" but what do I know about growing up in Cabrini Green? Some viewers might love this far more than "American Graffiti". This movie seems pretty forgotten, but it shouldn't be.

This is one of those films that you don't really know what to expect going in, think the film is going one way, and then it takes you a completely different route. But I really appreciate what this film did for not only the black community, as a part of the black exploitation film era, but also what it did for Chicago as a city. Every now and then there would be a film centered in and filmed in Chicago, but Cooley High did a lot for the city in terms of revamping their stake in the movie business.

Cooley High isn't really told in a typical 3 act structure. In fact, it's very episodic in that there's mini arcs within a bigger arc. For the most part, I enjoyed watching the film. We saw it in 70mm film for my cinema class and so I don't think I would have been aware of it otherwise, and I'm glad I got a chance to see it. Obviously being a white male, I'm not necessarily the target audience, but I think there's a lot of fun to be had with this group of kids from Cooley High. Not only is there a ton of great physical comedy (that holds up) but the writing makes you care about all of it's lead characters.

I don't believe any of the actors became famous, but they worked really well together on screen. Which makes it even more heart- breaking when you see the entire film. It's pretty much my only main complaint with the film. 95 percent of the film is comedic and then all of a sudden the end of the film hits you like a shot in the dark. To me, that's almost manipulative and too jarring for an audience. It's a film you walk out in pure silence because you don't really know what you just saw.

Having a pretty low budget, I'm sure they were constrained from filming in every location, but I do believe they could have used the Chicago landscape even more than they did. So overall, this film is pretty fun with great characters to watch and grow as high schoolers. The second half becomes a little uneven and the ending is very jarring, but it's definitely worth a watch for it's historical impact and it's comedic timing.

+Really funny

+Chemistry between the guys

+Important in history

-Jarring ending

7.1/10

It's 1964 Chicago. Preach and Cochise are best friends in the black high school, Edwin G. Cooley. They with two other friends skip school to go to the zoo. In a different incident, Preach is throwing dice in a local diner. When he shows interest in Brenda, Cochise bets him a dollar to hook up with her. The two joins other guys in a joyride which gets them into trouble. Mr. Mason is a teacher trying to guide Preach.

This is a coming-of-age teen drama in black cinema. The performances are good with some future veteran actors. It's episodic in nature. There are some humorous moments. It needs to get into the joyride earlier in the first act so as to make it the central point in a three act movie. It's more like a series of incidents that forms the highs and lows of the two young men's friendship and a blossoming romance. This has a realism and the sense of place.