6.8 | / 10 |
Users | 4.5 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.3 |
A tough kid comes to a new high school and begins muscling his way into the drug scene. As he moves his way up the ladder, a schoolteacher tries to reform him, his aunt tries to seduce him, and the "weedheads" are eager to use his newly found enterprise, but he has his own agenda. After an altercation involving fast cars, hidden drugs, and police, he's accepted by the drug kingpin and is off into the big leagues. A typical morality play of the era, filled with a naive view of drugs, nihilistic beat poetry, and some incredible '50s slang.
Starring: Russ Tamblyn, Jan Sterling, John Drew Barrymore, Mamie Van Doren, Jackie CooganCrime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.35:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio Mono
None
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
West Side Story is generally conceded to be one of the finest, if not the finest, translations of a stage musical to the medium of film, but as with virtually every movie musical culled from a Broadway hit (or flop), certain changes were made in order to take advantage of the narrative flow film offers. There were a couple of relatively minor but actually inventive swappings of song locations when the film version came out, including an earlier appearance for the hilarious song sung by The Jets, “Gee, Officer Krupke”. In the stage version, this anthem to juvenile delinquency (as it was then called) came in the second act, after the calamitous events which led to the deaths of Riff and Bernardo. In the film, Riff (Russ Tamblyn) is still very much alive as he mugs through this song that explains he and he ilk are “depraved on account Im deprived.” Three years before Tamblyn essayed the unforgettable role of Riff, he warmed up as another street wise punk, this one named Tony Baker, a high school kid who moves out to an unidentified suburb from Chicago, bringing his big city brusqueness with him. Though it initially seems like Tony might be the bad seed set to blow the world apart in a happy little late fifties’ slice of Americana with his bad boy demeanor and swaggering arrogance, it actually turns out that several kids raised in these environs have already gone over to “the dark side”, which in the case of this cheapie exploitation flick means that old trifecta of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, even if that particular coinage hadn’t quite been invented yet. High School Confidential! isn’t quite sleazy enough to be flat out hilarious, but it makes up for it with an amusing earnestness that can fairly easily be compared to the twin thirties’ scare flicks of Reefer Madness and Marihuana.
High School Confidential is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This CinemaScope production is sourced from elements in generally quite good condition, though there is a bit of age related damage that creeps in from time to time, including a few scratches and even an emulsion disturbance on a couple of occasions. But overall this is one of the nicest looking transfers we've had from Olive recently, with a stable, organic looking image that benefits from nice clarity and good contrast. As with virtually all Olive releases, there may not have been any restorative efforts, but there similarly hasn't been any undue digital tweaking.
High School Confidential's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono mix is a tad on the boxy side, something that rather unexpectedly doesn't show up so much in things like Jerry Lee Lewis' theme music as it does in moments like an extended drag race sequence, where the roaring of the hot rods seems slightly tamped down and compressed. Dialogue is always very cleanly presented and there's no damage of any major import to mention.
No supplements are included on this Blu-ray disc.
A lot of people just flat out dismiss High School Confidential as a cheapie exploitation flick, and there's certainly no denying the fact that that is exactly what the film is. However, that doesn't mean it isn't weirdly enjoyable in its own "jive cat" way. The two recitations in the film are a hoot (to purloin a phrase from that era), and there's a certain humor to watching a buttoned down banker type (actually a school official) educate parents and teachers about the differences between a regular cigarette and a joint. If the film isn't as hysterically (in both senses of that word) reactionary as Reefer Madness, that's probably more a commentary on the complacency of the fifties than it is of any inherent laziness. Technical merits here are very good, and High School Confidential comes Recommended.
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Slipcover in Original Pressing
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