Never Seen It #248: Cooley High

We were friends, a long time ago. Laughin', rappin', chasin' girls, watchin' 400 movies, obeying no laws, except the one of blogging. Basketball days and high nights, no tomorrows, unable to remember yesterday. We live for today...

Cooley High

1975

Michael Schultz

Thanks to Group D for the good movie pick. Some thoughts below, and then a discussion in the comment section, if you're interested!

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Sam

What luxury for youthful white kids that they can fuck around in ignorance without repercussion for their indiscretions. 

Although made years before some of the subsequent decades' high school party romps, Cooley High mostly plays in similar swimming pools... until the end. The teen boys here have potential, but want to fuck around with booze and girls. There are some minor hijinks, and it features a bevy of needle-drop (though weirdly tinny) songs. But unlike the mostly white films that follow, this movie is a tragedy, not a comedy.

Cooley High works more of a time capsule and an interesting comparative study in film than a totally entertaining romp. Writer Eric Monte draws from his own experiences and produces some fun vignettes over the course of a week at Cooley High. Interestingly, the film mostly plays out across Chicago rather than the school, as the city serves as their playground. Monte knew how to have fun, as he was vital to sitcoms Good Times, The Jeffersons, and What's Happening!! But this film allowed him to flex his dramatic muscles.

Viewed after the fact, it's a Shakespearean premise, though the sudden turn while watching was jarring. An athlete (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) and an intellectual (Glynn Turman) galivant with buddies and brutes; a few romances and love quadrangles emerge; a minor juvenile crime occurs; a wise older figure (played expertly by SNL's Garrett Morris) intercedes but inadvertently is a catalyst for the doom; and a series of miscommunications results in death. The balance of the film, though, is like 90% frivolity, 10% pain. Ultimately, it makes us mourn Cochise's accidental death all the more, but again, it was surprising.

I'm so used to these setups that, in watching an original, I am waiting for the patterns to emerge rather than be entertained by the ride. That's not a critique of a 1975 movie, just the reality of the context of which I view it. In some bit of irony, I guess I appreciate the climax more because my expectations were subverted.

As an aside, this film could use a remaster as the audio—especially the music—is garbled. I am glad that a major service like Prime features the film, and in recent years, I frequently see Cooley High on lists of important films. However, this is a landmark film in Black cinema and cinema writ large, and therefore deserves appropriate restoration/preservation. 

4 out of 5 stars

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Brianna

Cooley High: a high school quite unlike my own, and yet the film made to its backdrop has a lesson or two anyone who's been a teenager can understand. First: ask questions when your friends show up in a fancy new car. Second: just because you feel invincible when you're young doesn't mean you actually are. 

(And third: respect your damn history teacher!)

Most people find out Lesson #2 the hard way, and it seems that Preach and Cochise were no different. I only wish I cared a bit more. The moment was big, don't get me wrong; I even teared up a bit during the graveside speech and poetry reading. But all that had happened before, or perhaps the lack thereof, left me feeling pretty unconnected to most of the big characters by the time we reached the end.

Preach, for example. A clearly bright and interesting character whose love of poetry seems to set him on a different path than his friends. He's certainly conflicted in what he believes about himself and his future, a feature highlighted by Mr. Mason's attempts to reach him in the bathroom scene. But what ultimately comes of this? A brief mention of becoming screenwriter is thrown in at the end of the movie and that's that. Poetry, screenwriting, I guess that's the same right? I just wish his most interesting trait had a bigger revelation.

Then there was poor Cochise. We touch base with him a good deal at the start of the movie, and get a feel for his talents in basketball, but after that, things get murky. It was almost like after he got his scholarship, his perspective was cut from the story. His hooking with Sandra, for example. As an audience, I feel like we're supposed to be surprised at this betrayal, but honestly, I didn't even know his character enough to understand the motivation there. 

There were a few more things I wish the writer(s) had fleshed out more. Take your pick of literally any of the characters mentioned in the "this is where they ended up" montage. Who the heck even were these people? Did where they ended up make sense with who they were? How am I supposed to know? 

I do respect what the movie was trying to do, and understand its place in the halls of classic cinema. The music was so fun, and the kids were clearly having a ball. I laughed at times (the fights got me often, especially the kickoff to the movie theater one), and cried at the few powerful character moments (e.g. the return of "pouring one out for the homies who aren't here"). My only wish is that the direction felt more distinct. If we're going to call this a story about friendship, let's dig into that friendship more than showing the shenanigans. If we're going to call this "a day in the life of living in the projects," then let's make that a more consistent thread to explore.

Instead we got something that wasn't quite anything at all. Not great, not bad, not too deep or complex, just there. 2.5 out of 5 Pukes.

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Joe

I was hoping that this would end up being a good movie to watch during the first week of school here in 2025. The school year at Cooley High in 1964 is pushing toward its end, so there are more springtime, school-is-almost-through vibes. It wasn't necessary that we watch a movie about the first week of school during our own first week of school, I just thought that would have been a nice coincidence.

I like watching movies that I can relate to, that's all. Even if I can relate to them in silly ways, like "first week of school" or whatever. I'm not saying that it's NECESSARY to relate to a movie, I'm just saying that when it happens, I enjoy the movie. I'm going to make millions of people cringe when I say this, but I'll say it anyway: I could relate to a lot of what was going on in Cooley High. 

Of course, there are specific details and specific circumstances that I could not relate to. I'm not saying Cooley High ended up being an all-encompassing thing for me and my life. It couldn't have been—fifty years old this summer, Cooley High is a classic of the Black cinematic experience, and I... well, I'm white. So I think there are certain aspects to the film that I was supposed to not be able to relate to. But then, Cooley High was also so fucking good at capturing some universal experiences and emotions, those attached to "being a teenager" as opposed to (or in addition to) "being Black." The latter is more important to the film's legacy, but the former is probably more important to my own experience with it.

I really felt the character of Leroy "Preach" Jackson (and NOT just because he was incredibly embarrassed when his friends were talking about something that he wrote). I suppose it may have come off as cliché to some (especially the trope of the teacher trying to tell him "you have so much potential!"), but I think there is a very specific emotion that comes with being just smart enough to get by in high school without even trying, and also because of that having the space to fuck around and be kind of an asshole teenager, maybe out of some self-defense mechanism because you are afraid of your own abilities and afraid of appearing "better than," because you know you're not, despite those natural abilities. I felt that deeply, and I thought Preach was a get representation of such a character.

I'm on the fence about whether I found the ending to his story satisfying. If I were to say "no," then I suspect I'd be saying that because I'm focusing too much on my own experiences and not enough on the experiences of e.g. the screenwriter. Eric Monte has said that he wrote it in order to dismiss the idea that the projects, and the schools that the children from the projects attended, were all doom and gloom. 50 years later (and 61 years after the movie takes place), I would say that those misconceptions are still instilled in us (as I witness occasionally through my job), but it's still not true. People can live full and happy lives no matter where they live. People can also experience hardship and pain wherever they live too. But the ostensible purpose of this film's existence is to show a very specific place, and paint a picture of that place that feels very... normal.

So my original problem with the end is that it doesn't feel earned. Preach doesn't seem to learn anything. He more or less dismisses Mr. Mason during the attempted heart-to-heart, he's still fucking around and getting high even when his buddy Cochise gets murdered. He runs away from the casket, and you're not sure whether he's gonna pull his shit together. That is, until a "Where Are They Now?" ending that says, yeah, Preach was successful. He got everything he wanted. Not sure about that one.

But if I were to try to explain it, I think that it all ties back to the intentions of the screenwriter. Substance use, close calls with the cops, a lack of ambition, too much fucking around with your friends, breaking household rules and making your mom sad, actions that cause palpable disappointment among the adults in your life—all these things might, in an average movie, be signifiers of someone Going Down the Wrong Path. But here, all these things exist for our main character, and yet they are mostly just a way of life, slight hitches on the way to a normal, successful adulthood. 

And then this is where the "Black Cinema" thing comes in, where it becomes important what race the main characters in this movie are, and what race the filmmakers are. If the point of Cooley High was to show that there is pain and struggle and ultimately everything works out—"yes, even for kids in the projects!"—then it is important to show that the main character succeeds, eventually. This isn't a "society is fucked!" film (unlike Boyz n the Hood, which is said to be inspired by Cooley High). Life is a little harder for Preach and Cochise and their friends, but that struggle is not highlighted at all. This is more of a "life is struggle, but it can look normal if you approach it from a certain angle" film. There wouldn't be a movie if there was no conflict; it wouldn't ring true if it was ALL conflict. Cooley High strikes a balance that felt real to me, even if I have no way of knowing if the details are correct.

I hope that makes sense. I'm saying all these things in service of saying that I liked Cooley High and thought it was a great film. I thought it did a great job at showing me something new while not actually showing me anything new. I've been a teenager before (even though I looked a little younger than 28-at-the-time Glynn Turman). I don't know exactly how this goes... but I pretty much know how this goes. And I'm glad there's a movie like this that show that experience in that very specific way, for those who need to see themselves on the screen and might not have had any other movies that showed it like this.

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5

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GROUP AVERAGE GRADE: 3.33 pukes out of 5

Alrighty, see ya in the comments.

(NEXT TIME: Catch Catch Me If You Can if you can.)