''Rock 'n' Roll High School'' is a 1979 American

musical Musical is the adjective of music. Musical may also refer to: * Musical theatre, a performance art that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance * Musical film Musical film is a film genre in which songs by the Character (arts), charac ...

comedy film The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...

directed by

Allan Arkush Allan Arkush (born April 30, 1948) is an American director and producer of films, television and videos. He is a regular collaborator with Joe Dante. Early life Arkush grew up in Fort Lee, New Jersey. He graduated in 1966 from Fort Lee High ...

, produced by

Michael Finnell Michael Finnell is a film producer active from the 1970s in film, 1970s to the present. He has produced several horror film, horror-comedy films, particularly with the director Joe Dante. Finnell worked for the American producer Roger Corman befo ...

, and starring

P. J. Soles Pamela Jayne Soles (née Hardon; born July 17, 1950) is a retired American actress. She made her film debut in 1976 as Norma Watson in Brian De Palma's ''Carrie (1976 film), Carrie'' (1976) before portraying List of Halloween (franchise) charact ...

, Vince Van Patten,

Clint Howard Clinton Engle Howard (born April 20, 1959) is an American actor. He is the second son born to American actors Rance and Jean Howard, and younger brother of actor and director Ron Howard. His more than 200 acting credits include feature films ...

and Dey Young. The film features the

punk rock Punk rock (also known as simply punk) is a rock music genre that emerged in the mid-1970s. Rooted in 1950s rock and roll and 1960s garage rock, punk bands rejected the corporate nature of mainstream 1970s rock music. They typically produced sh ...

group

Ramones The Ramones were an American punk rock band formed in the New York City neighborhood Forest Hills, Queens in 1974. Known for helping establish the punk movement in the United States and elsewhere, the Ramones are often recognized as one of th ...

Plot

Vince Lombardi Vincent Thomas Lombardi ( ; June 11, 1913 – September 3, 1970) was an American professional football coach and executive in the National Football League (NFL). Lombardi is considered by many to be among the greatest coaches and leaders in Ame ...

High School keeps losing principals to nervous breakdowns because of the students' love of

rock 'n' roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...

and their disregard for education. The leader of the students, Riff Randell, is the biggest Ramones fan at the school and also the worst behavioral problem, in that her disciplinary record fills an entire filing cabinet. She waits in line for three days to get tickets to see the band, hoping to meet

Joey Ramone Jeffrey Ross Hyman (May 19, 1951 – April 15, 2001), known professionally as Joey Ramone, was an American singer, songwriter, and the lead vocalist and founding member of the punk rock band Ramones, with Johnny Ramone and Dee Dee Ramone. His ...

so she can give him a song she wrote for the band, "Rock 'n' Roll High School". When the tyrannical Principal Togar takes her ticket away, Riff and her best friend Kate Rambeau have to find another way to meet their heroes: winning a radio contest. Riff succeeds in delivering her song to Joey Ramone, but the next day Principal Togar and a group of parents attempt to burn a pile of the kids' mostly Ramones rock records. In response, the students, joined by the Ramones (who are made honorary students), overthrow the teachers and hall monitors to take over the high school, with Principal Togar asking the musicians "Do your parents know you're Ramones?" When the police are summoned and demand that the students evacuate the building, they do so, but then the students and the Ramones burn down the school as a final act of youthful rebellion.

Cast

Production

Roger Corman, executive producer of the film, was looking to make a modern teen film similar to the ones he made in his early career during the 1960s, with the focus on current music of the time. The initial title ''Disco High'' was selected for a story idea from Allan Arkush and Joe Dante. A script was developed by Richard Whitley, Russ Dvonch, and Joseph McBride. During this time, the film went through several different title changes including ''Heavy Metal Kids'' and ''Girl's Gym''. Arkush directed the majority of the film, but Dante also helped when Arkush was suffering from exhaustion. Corman originally wanted

Cheap Trick Cheap Trick is an American rock band formed in Rockford, Illinois in 1970 by guitarist Rick Nielsen, bassist Tom Petersson, lead vocalist Robin Zander and drummer Bun E. Carlos. Their work bridged elements of '60s pop rock, guitar pop, '70s har ...

Todd Rundgren Todd Harry Rundgren (born June 22, 1948) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who has performed a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of the bands Nazz and Utopia. He is known for his sophistica ...

to play the band, but due to schedule conflicts, he was forced to find an alternative. The Ramones were suggested by Paul Bartel, one of the actors in the film. The genesis for the plot was a favorite story told to the film's original writer by his father, Raymond E. McBride of the ''

Milwaukee Journal The ''Milwaukee Journal Sentinel'' is a daily morning broadsheet printed in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where it is the primary newspaper and also the largest newspaper in the state of Wisconsin, where it is widely read. It was purchased by the G ...

'', who staged a walkout from his Superior (Wis.) Central High school in the 1920s. The film was shot on the campus of the defunct Mount Carmel High School in

South Central Los Angeles South Los Angeles, also known as South Central Los Angeles or simply South Central, is a region in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, lying mostly within the city limits of Los Angeles, south of Downtown Los Angeles, downtown. It is de ...

, which had been closed in 1976. The nighttime school explosions and fires were so great that many people were scared away and, temporarily, would not return to the on-campus sets. Extras were students from

Mira Costa High School Mira Costa High School (MCHS, "Costa") is a four-year public high school located in Manhattan Beach, California that first opened 1950. It is the only high school in the Manhattan Beach Unified School District. The school's athletic teams are k ...

Manhattan Beach, California Manhattan Beach is a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, California, United States, on the Coastal California, Pacific coast south of El Segundo, California, El Segundo, west of Hawthorne, California, Hawthorne and Redondo Beach, and north ...

. The opening sequence, the food fight scene, and the dance number “Do You Wanna Dance” featured the drill team and football team wearing their actual uniforms from MCHS.

Release

The film had a sneak preview in Hollywood. It then had showings in Texas and New Mexico in April, 1979. It then went to San Francisco, then in July to Chicago, and opened in Manhattan on August 3 of that year, then continued on to further markets.

Home media

''Rock 'n' Roll High School'' was originally released on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

by Warner Home Video in 1983, and was later re-released on VHS in 1996 by New Horizons Home Video (). A year later, in 1997, it was issued on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

by Lumivision. A second DVD release occurred in 1999 from Slingshot. Shortly after Joey Ramone's death in 2001, New Concorde produced a third DVD release. The film was once again issued on DVD in 2005 by Buena Vista Home Entertainment ( ). DVDs in the PAL format were issued by Umbrella Entertainment in 2003 () and again in 2007 (). The film was a part of

Shout! Factory Shout! Factory, LLC, doing business as Shout! Studios (formerly doing business as Shout! Factory, its current legal name), is an American home video and music distributor founded in 2002 as Retropolis Entertainment. Its video releases, issued i ...

's ''Roger Corman Cult Classics'' series, reissued on DVD in May 2010. Shout! Factory released the film with exclusive content on Blu-ray on May 11, 2010 and again on November 19, 2019, with a new 4K restoration.

Soundtrack

A soundtrack album on

Sire Sire is an archaic respectful form of address to reigning kings in Europe. In French and other languages it is less archaic and relatively more current. In Belgium, the king is addressed as "Sire..." in both Dutch and French. The words "sire" an ...

Warner Bros. Records Warner Records Inc. (known as Warner Bros. Records Inc. until 2019) is an American record label. A subsidiary of Warner Music Group, it is headquartered in Los Angeles, California. It was founded on March 19, 1958, as the recorded music division ...

was released around the same time, but it included only a limited number of songs from the film. The two main Ramones songs (the title song and "I Want You Around") were recorded by Ed Stasium but remixed by

Phil Spector Harvey Phillip Spector (December 26, 1939 – January 16, 2021) was an American record producer and songwriter who is best known for pioneering recording practices in the 1960s, followed by his trials and conviction for murder in the 2000s. S ...

for the soundtrack album. The original Ed Stasium mixes were not issued until the compilation album '' Ramones Mania'' (1988) and the compilation album '' Hey! Ho! Let's Go: The Anthology'' (1999), respectively. Other songs appearing in the film include: *

Bent Fabric Bent Fabricius-Bjerre (7 December 1924 – 28 July 2020), better known internationally as Bent Fabric, was a Danish pianist and composer. Biography Bent Fabricius-Bjerre was born in Frederiksberg, Denmark. He started a jazz ensemble after ...

– " Alley Cat" * Brian Eno – " Spirits Drifting" * Brian Eno – " Alternative 3" * Brian Eno – "M386" *

Fleetwood Mac Fleetwood Mac are a British-American Rock music, rock band formed in London in 1967 by the singer and guitarist Peter Green (musician), Peter Green. Green named the band by combining the surnames of the drummer, Mick Fleetwood, and the bassis ...

– "

Albatross Albatrosses, of the biological family Diomedeidae, are large seabirds related to the procellariids, storm petrels, and diving petrels in the order Procellariiformes (the tubenoses). They range widely in the Southern Ocean and the North Paci ...

" * Fleetwood Mac – "Jigsaw Puzzle Blues" *

Paul McCartney Sir James Paul McCartney (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter and musician who gained global fame with the Beatles, for whom he played bass guitar and the piano, and shared primary songwriting and lead vocal duties with John ...

– "Did We Meet Somewhere Before?" *

MC5 MC5 was an American rock music, rock band formed in Lincoln Park, Michigan, in 1963. The classic lineup consisted of vocalist Rob Tyner, guitarists Wayne Kramer and Fred "Sonic" Smith, bassist Michael Davis (bassist), Michael Davis, and drummer ...

– "High School" * The Paley Brothers – "You're the Best" *

The Velvet Underground The Velvet Underground were an American Rock music, rock band formed in New York City in 1964. Its classic lineup consisted of singer and guitarist Lou Reed, Welsh multi-instrumentalist John Cale, guitarist Sterling Morrison, and percussionis ...

– "

Rock & Roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, and rock 'n' roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from African ...

" *

Huey Lewis and the News Huey Lewis and the News (formerly known as Huey Lewis & The American Express) are an American rock band based in San Francisco, California. They had a run of hit singles during the 1980s and early 1990s, eventually achieving 19 top ten singl ...

- "Who Cares" As well as the following songs by the Ramones: * " Blitzkrieg Bop" * " Do You Wanna Dance?" * " I Just Want to Have Something to Do" * " I Wanna Be Sedated" * " I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" * " Questioningly" * " Sheena Is a Punk Rocker"

Reception

''Rock 'n' Roll High School'' received generally positive reviews. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 70 out of 100, based on 7 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". ''

The Globe and Mail ''The Globe and Mail'' is a Newspapers in Canada, Canadian newspaper printed in five cities in Western Canada, western and central Canada. With a weekly readership of more than 6 million in 2024, it is Canada's most widely read newspaper on week ...

'' wrote that "the plot owes something to ''Animal House'' (but ''Rock 'n' Roll High School'' is funnier) and something to ''Beach Blanket Bingo'' and something to many other movies too numerous to mention; it is not, how you say, original." ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe,'' also known locally as ''the Globe'', is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes. ''The Boston Globe'' is the oldest and largest daily new ...

'' opined: "It has the look of ''Grease'' and the soul of ''Animal House''—and it's better than both. The anarchic rock of The Ramones electrifies the film with a driving beat that never lets up. The film, like rock and roll, is just plain fun."

Sequel

In 1991 a sequel called ''

Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever ''Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever'' is a 1991 musical comedy film and sequel to the 1979 film ''Rock 'n' Roll High School''. The film stars Corey Feldman and Mary Woronov. Plot The movie begins on May 14, also known as ''Rock 'n' Roll High ...

'' was released. The sequel starred

Corey Feldman Corey Scott Feldman (born July 16, 1971) is an American actor and musician. As a youth, he became well known for his roles in popular 1980s films such as '' Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter'' (1984), '' Gremlins'' (1984), '' The Goonies'' (198 ...

Mary Woronov Mary Woronov (born December 8, 1943) is an American actress, writer, and Figurative art, figurative painter. She is primarily known as a cult film star because of her work with Andy Warhol and her roles in Roger Corman's cult films. Woronov has ...

, who played Miss Togar in the original film, appeared in the sequel as Vice Principal Doctor Vadar. The movie was met with poor reviews but over the years it has gained a cult following.

Proposed remake

In July 2008, actor/writer Alex Winter was hired to script a remake of the film for

Howard Stern Howard Allan Stern (born January 12, 1954) is an American broadcaster and media personality. He is best known for his radio show, ''The Howard Stern Show'', which gained popularity when it was nationally syndicated on terrestrial radio from 1 ...

's production company.

In other media

Corman's short-lived

comic book A comic book, comic-magazine, or simply comic is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panel (comics), panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are often accompanied by descriptive prose and wri ...

publishing imprint, Roger Corman's Cosmic Comics, released a two-issue take on the film in 1995, written by Bob Fingerman with art by Shane Oakley and Jason Lutes. Unable to acquire likeness licenses for the

, the comic instead featured the

Melvins Melvins (sometimes the Melvins) are an American rock band formed in 1983 in Montesano, Washington. Their early work was key to the development of both grunge and sludge metal. Primarily a trio, they have also performed as a quartet, with eith ...

.Reed, Patrick A
"Pop Music Comics: The 90s, part three. Roger Corman & The Melvins, and more KISS"
''Depth of Field'' (February 11, 2012).

References

External links

* * *
''Village Voice'' interview with director Allan Arkush
{{Authority control 1979 films 1979 comedy films 1979 independent films 1970s American films 1970s English-language films 1970s musical comedy films 1970s teen comedy films American musical comedy films American rock music films American teen comedy films American high school films American independent films Films about juvenile delinquency Films about musical groups Films directed by Allan Arkush Films produced by Roger Corman Films set in 1980 Films shot in Los Angeles New World Pictures films Punk films Ramones Sire Records soundtracks Song recordings produced by Phil Spector English-language independent films English-language musical comedy films 1979 musical films