7.4 | / 10 |
Users | 4.0 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
High school nerd Jerry Mitchell is assigned to write a piece for the school paper about new boy Buddy Revell, who is rumored to be a psychopathic nutcase. When Jerry accidentally touches Buddy, he says that they must fight in the parking lot at 3pm. Jerry will do just about anything to avoid the confrontation.
Starring: Casey Siemaszko, Richard Tyson, Jeffrey Tambor, Philip Baker Hall, John P. RyanTeen | 100% |
Comedy | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 (48kHz, 24-bit)
BDInfo
English SDH
Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 3.5 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
One of the most original and innovative high school movies of the eighties, Three O'Clock High unfortunately received the minimum advertising campaign from Universal Pictures. This lack of media exposure caused (at least in part) its tepid reception at the box office. As first-time director Phil Joanou remembers in a new interview on this disc, Universal's marketing department basically used a single poster image for the movie to display in the newspapers and industry trades. Joanou's feature directorial debut wasn't promoted on television and hence unable to generate much word-of-mouth beyond opening weekend when it grossed $1.5 million. As Joanou also correctly recalls, Universal put it in 849 theaters nationwide, a fairly modest number for a major given that Prince of Darkness was the studio's only other significant release in circulation during October 1987. Three O'Clock High boasted a wonderful cast led by Casey Slemaszko (pronounced sha-MOSH-ko), who had already appeared in an episode of Spielberg's Amazing Stories, Back to the Future, Stand by Me, and Coppola's underrated Gardens of Stone. In addition to Slemaszko's talented co-stars Annie Ryan and Richard Tyson, the film boasted dependable veteran character actors like Jeffrey Tambor, Philip Baker Hall, and John P. Ryan.
Critics often compared Three O'Clock High to John Hughes's work and I think this worked against the film. Joanou recalls that when he first read Richard Christian Matheson and Tom Szolossi's script After School, it was too much like a Hughesian teen dramedy. Joanou not only revised the original script and and changed its title, he also did at least three rewrites (the 10/13/86 draft I've read) and added new scenes to his own screenplay. I watched Three O'Clock High for the first time on this Shout Select edition and could immediately discern its self-reflexive nature and the inversions it makes to other high school films of the era. For example, the opening credits montage in which Jerry Mitchell (Casey Slemaszko) is running late for school inverts the climax of Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Joanou's busy, frenetic camera is much like Hughes's but whereas Ferris has to race through other people's houses in order to get home, Jerry has to hurry to get ready to open the Weaver High School Student Store on time. The big, tall, and mean bully named Buddy Revell (Richard Tyson), with his black leather jacket, is a throwback to Brando's Johnny Strabler and the biker boys in The Wild One (1953). Joanou also pays homage to Tony Bill's My Bodyguard (1980) when Jerry asks the brawny football player Craig Mattey (Mike Jolly) to beat Buddy up before he has to fight him at 3 p.m. in the schoolyard. The Mattey character is clearly modeled after Adam Baldwin's Linderman and even contains an inflation joke lifted from that Carter-era film! In addition, the Berlin band Tangerine Dream parody one of their classic themes from Paul Brickman's teen sex comedy Risky Business (1983). The famed electronics group employ a nice variation of their "Love on the Real Train" for two scenes: when Jerry's "book report" charms Miss Farmer (Caitlin O'Heaney) and when Jerry's wannabe girlfriend Franny Perrins (Annie Ryan) holds a romantic candlelight in the student store where she kisses and tries to seduce him. The spotting for these scenes are apropos since Tangerine Dream wrote similar music for Joel Goodson's lovemaking scene with Lana in the Brickman film. Joanou explains that when he flew to Germany to meet with Tangerine Dream and hear the recording sessions, the score was overly dark, moody, and better suited for a horror picture. They couldn't relate to the American teen experience so Joanou politely educated them about it; he also convinced them to re-score and remix their compositions so they weren't all centered around Buddy Revell. The result is a sound track full of variety and great diversity. Mood and tempo probably change more often than what Joanou originally heard. Sylvester Levay's additional music is a good complement to Tangerine Dream's and Jim Walker's "Something to Remember Me By" is a rousing ballad that bookends the film very well.
Jerry Mitchell wants to interview Buddy Revell for the school paper but he's got a bigger problem than he imagined.
Three O'Clock High makes it worldwide debut on Blu-ray courtesy of Shout! Factory's subsidiary, Shout Select (#33 in the sublabel's series) on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. Presented in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1, this (composite?) print appears struck from a dated master. The main titles during the first reel show a lot of wear and tear. You'll notice the dirt and white speckle on Jerry's pillow in Screenshot #18. You'll also spot the debris surrounding Jerry and his little sister Brei (pronounced like Brie cheese) in the ocular shot in #19 (POV is supposed to be from inside a washing machine!). The specks begin to let up after the 9:15 mark. It's at that point (Screenshot #20) in which color definition and density improve. There's still some small pockets of white vertical lines that pop up during one hallway scene (perhaps the scene in which capture #28 takes place). Fleshtones are pale and white for some characters while they're red and ruddy for others. The main feature receives an average video bitrate of 31994 kbps; the whole disc sports a total bitrate of 37.36 Mbps.
Shout provides a generous twenty-four chapter breaks for the movie.
Shout supplies the film's original DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (1576 kbps, 24-bit) as the default and only sound track. The master is in practically immaculate condition with no noticeable source defects. Dialogue is consistently clear as the track even renders enunciations from Philip Baker Hall's gravely voice with clarity. Tangerine Dream's music sounds pleasing to the ears. There's some discreteness but overall, the stereo mix is evenly balanced.
Shout gives viewers the option of English SDH. I watched the movie with them displayed and they give an accurate transcription of the dialogue.
I love Three O'Clock High and consider it one of the unsung teen films of the eighties. If you own Universal's 2003 DVD, you will want to indulge in this package. Phil Joanou is very exuberant looking back at his inaugural feature as his audio commentary and interview are replete with filmmaker stories and production anecdotes, although they overlap at times. I was also very impressed with the volume of color pictures that Shout pulled from the Universal vault. The transfer still leaves restoration work to be desired but the image becomes clearer after the first reel. Fans of Miller's The Road Warrior (1981) and Scorsese's After Hours should get a hoot out of this one. Hopefully, Shout will also release Sean Cunningham's The New Kids (1985) in the near future. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
2015
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1985