3 heures, l'heure du crime

3 O'Clock High is a wonderful film. It bears little resemblance to the 80's teen archetypes, such as _Fast Times at Ridgemond High_ or the Hughes films, excellent as those films may be. 3 O'Clock is purely plot-based; a sensitive view of teenage angst can be found elsewhere.

The basic plot: Jerry Mitchell, everyman adolescent, manages to get himself into an after-school fight with the school psychopath Buddy Revell by 8:00 am, and spends the next 7 hours contriving every scheme to escape the certain flogging which awaits him at 3pm. The film opens with a clicking alarm clock (peculiar for an electric clock) and ends with an image of the school clock; in between, clock dials, and class bells serve as symbolic death watch beetles.

Jerry's gradual disintegration amongst his friends, the school administration, and the school store manager as well as his physical and moral decline as the day wears on is very amusing.

What's memorable about the film is its radical cinematography which we presume is the contribution of long-time Coen collaborator cinematographer Barry Sonenfeld. Extreme wide-angle shots, and a clever technique of high-speed crane shots make for a very distinctive look (which I have never seen duplicated). While clever technique this could create a ponderous over-theatrical look (like some of Spielberg's 80's work as viewed today) or a vapid MTV look, Joanou uses the showy technique to great effect and the film looks as fresh today as it did nearly 20 years ago.

The enigmatic Buddy Revell is a wonderful creation, masterfully introduced by a continuous moving shot following, in succession, three sets of exchanges between students recounting Buddy's legendary reputation for psychotic violence. The roving camera threads through each group of students as deftly as if in a Fellini film, (at the risk of being bombastic).

As well as a sharp plot and dialog, and an innovative technique and excellent production values, the assembled cast is uniformly superb. Casey Siemaszko is perfect for the role, and Richard Tyson gives an absolutely straight interpretation of Buddy Revell. Seconday roles are played by character actors Jeffrey Tambor, John P. Ryan, Mitch Pileggi among others.

In conclusion, you know it's a special film because so many of the images and the dialog stick in one's mind. The cheerleaders tearing apart the effigy and skull as the horrified Jerry watches, the library shelves toppling like dominoes to reveal Jerry and Vince cowering in the corner, all of the scenes with "The Duker", the Dean of Discipline's dungeon of an office, the educational 8mm insect film, the sinister retelling of the Iliad, Jerry frantically attempting to break open a cash register using a world globe and fire extinguisher.

The film probably didn't make it big because no big names were connected to it. Joanou would go on to do a curiously unrelated string of projects, some music videos, television documentaries, and even sitcom work. He did do another mainstream film _State of Grace_ (1990) with Sean Penn, another excellent and underrated film.

This is a consistently overlooked and under-rated film. Fans of movies like Rushmore and Election may be surprised to learn that even during the John Hughes (Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, etc.) era there were still hip, funny movies being made about the high school experience.

The movie is shot in a mildly surreal "Coen brothers-esque" fashion that makes it a joy to look at, while the script is sharp and inventive. Despite its abstract nature, the script is very true to the realism of adolescent intimidation. Also not to be overlooked are some very clever performances by some lesser known performers which come off as very convincing.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a great film, very few are. If you consider Rushmore a 10 in this genre than Three O'clock High is about a 6 1/2 or a seven, but still well worth viewing.

Three O' Clock High Suburban High School Masterpiece - 10 (classic)

At age thirteen, I was beginning to question my place in the flux of society. Did I belong to that group or that group? Little did I know that I was to hit puberty soon, whereupon a new cocktail of hormones would knock my brain out of childhood and into the world of minimum wages, TV, and weapons of mass destruction.

No other movie I can think of captures that sense of stark naked individuality as poignantly as THREE O'CLOCK HIGH. This brilliant film features a hero and a villain, both of whom are loners. The hero, played by Casey Siemaszko, is a born loser, the one who realizes that his fly is open during public speaking class and faces the laughter of all the normal kids. The villain, a young and fresh Richard Tyson, who was born to play this role, is the psychotic biker thug who never says a word and never allows anyone to touch him. The two loners have an unlucky encounter one morning, and as Jerry Mitchell apologizes he accidentally touches Buddy Revell's jacket. That's where the shat goes down, and soon the whole school is abuzz with the latest news: fight at three o' clock. Buddy Revell vs. Jerry Mitchell.

THREE O' CLOCK HIGH is directed and edited with supreme wit. Every second of the day is stretched to darkly humorous extremes. Each tick of the clock brings the audience closer to doom and a zoom closer into Jerry's sweaty forehead. Anyone who's set foot in an American school will be up in stitches suffering from that kind of uncontrollable laughter that bubbles up from the sternum. As he over-interprets the things he sees around him, Jerry Mitchell's fear reaches out through the screen and tickles your stomach. No other pathetic loser role has been played as well ever or since in my opinion.

I don't think that any of the cast & crew of this classic film have had the industry standard "illustrious" career, but who cares? They all came together in 1987 to make a movie that changed the course of my life. Stephen Spielberg was involved in THREE 'O CLOCK HIGH's production, but I don't know exactly where. Anne Ryan did a stellar job as Jerry's proto-goth girlfriend. Who knows what she's doing now? By now the children of 1987 are all grown up and running the rat race in a gerbil wheel.

THREE O' CLOCK HIGH will resurface all of the high school emotions that you want to forget. Do you remember wetting your pants, the puppy dog love, or being abandoned by your close friends? One thing is for sure. Watching this movie will evoke those emotions, including the deepest of thrills - overcoming the odds and getting that half-assed paper in on time.

Jimboduck.

Why is this movie not up there with 'The Breakfast Club,' 'Heathers,' and other teen rite-of-passage classics? 'Three O'Clock High' is hilarious. The cinematography is as well-executed as the script, and laughs appear at just about every turn. The mixed nuts in the cast give great deadpan performances (Jeffrey Tambor kills me every time as he heartbrokenly surveys the vandalized school supply store -- 'what kind of animals would DO this?' he almost weeps), playing up the comic absurdity of the script. A wonderful farce that hasn't lost a bit of its charm in 12 years. Why Anne Ryan, the hero's girlfriend, disappeared after this movie is a mystery to me -- she should have become another Winona Ryder. Don't pass this one up if your local video store has bothered to keep it on the shelf. You can thank me later. And if you're leery because the movie tanked at the box office, remember, Milli Vanilli's record sold seven million copies, so trusting the mainstream public is not always the best idea...

The teen movies of the 80's decade were dominated by the cheesy / romantic / well-intentioned cinema of John Hughes; the "Lemon Popsicle" sex teen movies clones such as Bob Clark's "Porky's" trilogy, "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" or "The Last American Virgin" and the Spielberg's executive produced adventure / fantasy teen flicks such as "Back to the Future" or "The Goonies".

Phil Joanou's first venture as a director was an unconventional teen comedy for its time called "Three O'Clock High", set in an all american High School like the majority of Hughes' (and non-Hughes) flicks of this genre, inspired by the classic western "High Noon" starring Gary Cooper (in an Oscar winner role) and Grace Kelly and based in real life situations of the two screenwriters during their High School years.

Joanou, a fan of Scorsese's "After Hours", released 2 years prior and also an unusual comedy, but set in the adult world, based its directing style and fancy cinematography straight for the teen movie genre with the help of the inovator cinematographer, Barry Sonnenfeld (an usual collaborator of the Coen brothers at that time) to acquire a 'cartoon-ish' / comic book style through stylized camera angles and proper lightning effects resulting in a visually nifty film which also benefited from a skillful editing giving the movie its congruous frantic pace.

Besides the greatness of its technical aspects, the movie is also clever in its storytelling, the rivalry between the nerd, Jerry Mitchell and the "new kid on the block", the bad boy, Buddy Revell changes stereotypes through the course of the action with Mitchell being accused of theft, illegal weapon possession and even for cheating at the exam and Buddy, the long-haired' black leather jacket outsider being more smart & sensitive than people would give him credit for.

Casey Siemaszko, after a string of good supporting roles in famous teen movies such as "Back to the Future", "Secret Admirer" and "Stand by Me" was given the lead role of Jerry Mitchell and he's perfectly cast giving life to his character, a nervous, unpopular & nerdy high schooler about to face his rite of passage to becoming a confident young man after his feud with the troubled misfit, played here by Richard Tyson, in his debut role, who delivered an interesting (and imposing) performance as Buddy Revell, even if his screentime is kind of short.

The supporting players are filled with great character actors such as the always sinister, the late John P. Ryan ("Runaway Train", "Avenging Force", "Class of 1999"); Jeffrey Tambor and Mitch Pileggi (future Wes Craven's "Shocker" and better known as Skinner in the hit TV show, "The X-Files").

Some may say, including the late Roger Ebert in his review, that this movie resembles a lot of an early teen movie starring Chris Makepeace, Adam Baldwin & Matt Dillon called "My Bodyguard", which is a great (and earlier) entry on the High School genre, but ultimately, "Three O'Clock High" is way more creative, memorable and well paced and much more worthy in the rewatchable factor.

Steven Spielberg, who executive produced this movie, ordered to get his name removed from the credits after he watched a rough cut of this. Apparently, the big bearded wanted another "The Karate Kid" or a more conventional / cheesy High School teen flick and this kind of offbeat comedy startled him. He had already done the same two years before with "Fandango", the debut movie of director Kevin Reynolds which featured a young Kevin Costner in his first leading role.

In my point of view, Spielberg made a big mistake of disowned both films, because they're way original and inventive and still hold up well today and maybe with the Spielberg name envolved, they could have had more chances at the box office, instead of being flops that ran into obscurity (only cinephiles know the existence).

Also worthy of a mention is the memorable music score by Tangerine Dream and the additional music provided by Sylvester Levay.

In short, "Three O'Clock High" deserves to be in the Top 10 of the best High School teen movies from the 80's, it's a great watch and one of the last breath of a genre that started the downfall in popularity at the same time as the end of the decade was approaching...

On a side note, the hit TV Show for Fox Network that premiered in '90, "Parker Lewis Can't Lose" stole the concept, ideas, the cinematography and directing style of this one. Universal Pictures and Joanou should have sued Columbia Pictures Television for producing such a blatant rip-off.