Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

High School Confidential Blu-ray Movie Review

Riff: The Early Years.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 26, 2014

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 I’m 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 may never rise to the giddy heights of those two drug scare films, but it still is filled to the brim with outré and often very enjoyable elements. When Tony tools up to school in his car, he marauds into a place where a nice young man is preparing to parallel park by backing into it. The kid is understandably miffed until Tony warns him, “Hey, you started out with 32 teeth—wanna aim for zero?” Tony’s a tough talking braggadocio, and he wastes little time in putting the moves on pretty blonde Joan Staples (Diane Jergens). Unfortunately for Tony, Joan seems permanently attached to local BMOC (or “major stud”, as the film terms it) J.I. Coleridge (John Drew Barrymore), a “wannabe hoodlum” (in the words of a teacher) who leads a gang called the Wheelers and Dealers. Tony is intent on being the new leader of the gang by the end of his first few days in school, and he actually comes pretty close.

Meanwhile, Tony isn’t content to merely put the moves on girls his own age. He sizes up English teacher and guidance counselor Arlene Williams (Jan Sterling), and soon enough is riding around with her in his convertible, in a plot element which is relatively innocent enough but which may provoke squirms in those old enough to remember the Mary Kay LeTourneau scandal. Arlene of course only has the best intentions for Tony, but it’s obvious from Tony’s appraisal of Miss Williams’ derriere that he may have more carnal pursuits on his mind.

But Tony isn’t just the predator—he’s also the prey, at least when it comes to his voluptuous aunt Gwen Dulaine (Mamie Van Doren), the kind of buxom blonde who traipses around in her bathrobe so much that Tony is forced to ask whether she’s waking up or going to bed. In a perfect example of just how subtle High School Confidential is (which is to say, it’s not), Gwen sidles up to Tony and whispers sweet nothings into his ear whilst munching on an apple, Eve style.

Things would seem to be set up here for Tony to seduce these well behaved youngsters into a life of snarkiness if not outright crime, but High School Confidential actually takes a somewhat unexpected turn by having the virginal seeming Joan turn out to be a major pothead and several other students not just toking the demon weed, but moving on to harder drugs like heroin. (In the world of High School Confidential, marijuana is a gateway drug to heroin and heroin only.) In fact, it seems that one of the reasons Tony is so intent on bagging Joan is that he thinks she can provide him with some dope.

The film has achieved a certain notoriety for its two “hip” recitations, both evidently written by Mel Welles. Early in the film while Arlene is down at the office trying to check up on Tony, J.I. takes over her class and delivers a slang ridden account of Columbus setting out in a very “square” world to prove the cube has rounded edges after all. Later, in what is arguably the best remembered scene from the film, there's a “beat poetess” (Phillipa Fallon) who waxes philosophical about the “drag” of a 9 to 5 existence with little to show for it at the end of the day. Keep your eye on the pianist behing the the poetess—that is indeed future Uncle Fester himself, Jackie Coogan, playing a drug kingpin named Mr. A. (The film also features quasi-cameos by Michael Landon as a football jock and Charles Chaplin, Jr. as an undercover cop.)

But in the long run, High School Confidential turns out to be just as conformist as the elders the teens in this film are rebelling against. Tony’s real purpose at Santa Bello High turns out to be a good deal nobler than originally imagined, and of course several major characters, including the seemingly promiscuous Aunt Gwen, have settled down into a life of nice, well mannered conventionality by the time the film wends toward its close (in a moment of unintended hilarity, the narrator lets us know that Joan only smokes “regular cigarettes” nowadays). Not even a brief reprise of Jerry Lee Lewis’ rollicking theme song can inject much life into lives this orthodox.

High School Confidential Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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 Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

High School Confidential Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are included on this Blu-ray disc.

High School Confidential Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.