Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		3.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.0

Three O'Clock High Blu-ray Movie Review

"Pain is temporary. Film is forever!"

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson November 7, 2017

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.

While Three O'Clock High received decidedly mixed reviews, most if not all critics recognized twenty-five-year-old Phil Joanou's talent and his apprenticeship with Spielberg on Amazing Stories. When the movie screened out of competition in Montreal at the World Film Festival in late August '87, a Variety reviewer observed that Joanou "brings a gimmicky, cartoonish film school sensibility to bear upon the familiar teen-in-trouble genre...gives the teen situation story an interesting twist of paranoid dark humor...it shows more imagination that [sic] overrated confections such as 'Pretty In Pink' and 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off'." While I may put Three O'Clock High in the same league as Pretty in Pink, I wouldn't go out on a limb to say that it's equal or superior to Ferris Bueller (though it's close in several respects). One scene in Joanou's script that goes against logic is the lunchtime incident in Weaver Library. Without giving away too much, one would imagine that the ruckus would cause the library monitor to notify school security guard Duke Herman (Mitch Pileggi) or Voytek Dolinski (Charles Macaulay), the "Dean of Discipline," about Buddy's actions. Yet, school authorities don't pursue Buddy in the immediate aftermath and this stands out as a gaping plot hole.

Other reviewers presciently pointed out how Three O'Clock High diverged from genre conventions or critiqued other films of its ilk. The Boston Globe's Michael Blowen asserted that the film "takes the great adolescent struggle between bully and victim and transforms it into a first-rate social comedy." The reviewer blurb on the back of this BD case and on Shout!'s website is by Michael Wilmington, who was then a critic for the Los Angeles Times. He wrote: "In the best parts of "Three O'Clock High", Joannou sic transcends the teen cliches by calculated self-mockery. Exaggerating everything and everyone to the skies, he revives some of our old delight in the sheer mechanics of movie making." Three O'Clock High is not only aware of the films that it lampoons but also doesn't take its own tropes too seriously. Joanou keeps the audience on edge and off balance through the use of oblique camera angles, superimpositions, and the dolly zoom. Writing in the industry magazine the American Cinematographer when Three O'Clock High was released on videocassette, Mike Maginot noted that the film incorporates "some of the oddest camera angles and eccentric editing you will find in a teen pic." Joanou wasn't merely attempting to show off his experimental style but rather to get the audience inside Jerry Mitchell's state of mind over the course of one long terrible day.

Three O'Clock High Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

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.

Three O'Clock High Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

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.

Three O'Clock High Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• NEW Audio Commentary with Director Phil Joanou - Red Shirt Pictures's Michael Felsher moderates this new feature-length track with Joanou, who is energetic and chatty throughout. Although Joanou repeats several comments in Shout's recently recorded interview, he offers several different back stories and anecdotes about the production. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW "Head of the Class" – An Interview with Phil Joanou (32:32, 1080p) - in this wide-ranging interview, Joanou talks about how he got started with Spielberg on Amazing Stories, the original script titled After School that he received at Universal, the cast and crew members he collaborated with on Three O'Clock High, his protracted trip to Berlin where he met Tangerine Dream, and what the film means to him. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW "Passing the Test" – Interviews with Screenwriters Richard Christian Matheson and Tom Szollosi (18:00, 1080p) - Matheson and Szollosi recall how their high school experiences informed the screenplay and explain what it was like working for Aaron Spelling, Spielberg, and Joanou. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW "School Clothes" – An Interview with Costume Designer Jane Ruhm (13:43, 1080p) - Ruhm reminisces about the actors she created garments for and the different looks needed to reflect each character's personality. In English, not subtitled.

• Theatrical Trailer (1:30, upscaled to 1080) - Universal's original theatrical trailer for Three O'Clock High presented in 1.33:1. Please note that this gives away some important scenes so don't watch it if you've never seen the film. This was the lone extra on the DVD.

• Still Gallery (7:54, 1080p) - the first forty-seven images comprise horizontal color photographs with the theatrical poster design as a background. They make up publicity stills, behind-the-scenes shots, and individual scenes (including one deleted). The next approx. thirty-six images consist of slim vertical snapshots of Joanou and his cast at work. The last six are from the ad campaign (VHS and LD artwork). Cues from Tangerine Dream's score accompany this slide show.

Three O'Clock High Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

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.