Review of Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979) by Darrin C — 17 Jul 2014

The last member of the legendary NYC Punk band, The Ramones, Marky Ramone (AKA Marc Bell) recently passed away. He and his deceased bandmates can be seen in this Roger Corman-produced film. Corman saw how well the Saturday Night Fever was doing and came up with a title for a film called "Disco High.

" Luckily, director Alan Arkush convinced Roger to make Rock n' Roll High School instead. The film is a straightforward film about rebellious Ramones fan Riff Randle (P.J. Soles) fight with the repressive (and anti-rock n' roll) principal Miss Evelyn Togar (Mary Woronov who gets to deliver the best line in the film: "Does your mother know you're Ramones?").

Gene Simmons of Kiss has long maintained that his band was approached first but elected to film Kiss Meets The Phantom Of The Park. Corman's people do admit that they approached Cheap Trick. But its hard to imagine this movie with anyone other than The Ramones.

Alas, the commercial breakthrough that this movie and the LPs Road To Ruin and End Of The Century promised never delivered. The film is funny but calls for some of the more raunchy humor from Animal House; a major subplot does revolve around Vincent Van Patten trying to hook up with P.

J. Soles while Dey Young tries to hook up with him. Look for Paul Bartel as a sympathetic music teacher, Clint Howard (already thinning on top) as a sleazy high school fixer, and Corman regular Dick Miller in a virtual walk-on bit as the chief of police.

This movie was recommended to me by a friend and I rented it the same night I rented The Wicker Man which had been recommended by another fan; both films are in Danny Peary's Cult Movies.