Review of Cooley High (1975) by Stuart K — 27 Apr 2014

Directed by Michael Schultz (Car Wash (1976) and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1978)), and written by Eric Monte (The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974)), this was pitched as the African-American answer to American Graffiti (1973), although the school is real, and it was based on Monte's own personal experiences on growing up in rural Chicago, and it makes for compelling viewing.

Chicago 1964, and it follows the friendship of Leroy "Preach" Jackson (Turman) and Richard "Cochise" Morris (Hilton-Jacobs), who both attend Edwin G. Cooley High School, they don't do much in school, and one day, they skive off school along with Pooter (Corin Rogers) and Tyrone (Joseph Carter Wilson), and they go around urban and inner-city Chicago, before meeting up with Dorothy (Lynn Caridine) and Brenda (Cynthia Davis).

Preach bets a dollar that he'll sleep with Brenda, while Tyrone flirts with Dorothy. But the boys manage to get into a whole heap of trouble when they go joyriding around Chicago with the police in chase.

It manages to do quite a bit with so little, and Chicago hadn't changed that much when the makers went in to film it. It also has a very good soundtrack to rival American Graffiti's, and the film proved to be such a success when it opened in America, it spawned it's own tv series spin-off, What's Happening!! in 1976.