Cooley High is a 1975 American coming-of-agecomedy-drama film that follows the narrative of high school seniors and best friends, Leroy "Preach" Jackson (Glynn Turman) and Richard "Cochise" Morris (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs). Written by Eric Monte and directed by Michael Schultz, the film, primarily shot in Chicago, was a major hit at the box office, grossing over $13 million (USD). The light-hearted-turned-tragic storyline was complemented by a soundtrack featuring many Motown hits.[5]
In a 40th-year retrospective by NPR in 2015, Cooley High was called a "classic of black cinema" and "a touchstone for filmmakers like John Singleton and Spike Lee."[6] In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[7]
In 1964 Chicago, Leroy “Preach” Jackson and his best friend, Richard “Cochise” Morris, are in the final weeks of their senior year at Cooley Vocational High School in the Near North Side. They both sneak out of class one Friday and spend the rest of the day at Lincoln Park Zoo with two of their friends, Pooter and Willie. After catching the L train back to school, the gang goes to Martha’s, a local soul food hangout, where Preach meets and falls in love with fellow classmate Brenda while shooting craps with neighborhood hoodlums Stone and Robert. Cochise and Preach make a dollar bet on whether Preach can get Brenda into bed, after which Preach gets kicked out by a cleaver-wielding Martha for gambling.
When Cochise gets home from Martha’s, he gets a letter in the mail from Grambling State University informing him that he has received a basketball scholarship from their athletic department. That night, Cochise, Preach, Pooter, Willie, and another friend, Tyrone, attend a quarter party hosted by Tyrone’s girlfriend, Dorothy, at her apartment. Brenda is also in attendance, but she rejects Preach when he tries to woo her and retreats to Dorothy’s mother’s bedroom. The two of them end up bonding over a mutual interest in love poetry during a slow dance. Meanwhile, Cochise gets into a fistfight with hotheaded classmate Damon after Damon catches him kissing his girlfriend, Loretta, and the fight accidentally trashes Dorothy’s apartment and ultimately ends the party.
After Dorothy’s party, the boys go to Martha’s, at which point Stone and Robert pull up in a Cadillac Coupe de Ville and convince Preach and Cochise to get in with them. Unbeknownst to Preach and Cochise, the Cadillac is a stolen one, and Stone lets Preach drive after he brags about being such a good driver. However, due to Preach’s bad driving, the four end up speeding through downtown Chicago and get into a high-speed chase with police at a Navy Pier warehouse after Preach runs a red light. They manage to evade the police, but not after Preach accidentally rear ends a parked car with the occupants still inside, causing the four to flee in opposite directions before the police arrive.
On Saturday, Preach and Cochise go to the movies with their friends to see Mothra vs. Godzilla, during which a huge fight erupts after Pooter accidentally steps on a man’s foot while trying to get to his seat. On Sunday, Preach and Brenda make love after spending a romantic day together, but the afterglow of their encounter is spoiled after Brenda discovers Preach’s dollar bet with Cochise and she leaves Preach's house in anger. On Monday, Preach and Cochise are scheduled to take an important history midterm, but they are arrested right before the midterm for their joyride in the Cadillac that Stone and Robert stole. While being questioned, Mr. Mason, the boys’ history teacher, persuades one of the detectives, a close friend, to let them go because of their clean records. Stone and Robert, however, remain in jail due to them being repeat offenders. After Preach and Cochise are released, Stone and Robert wrongly assume that they snitched on them.
A few days later, Preach discovers that Mr. Mason got him and Cochise out of jail, and he sets off to find Cochise to tell him the news. While looking for Cochise, Preach runs into Cochise's cousin, Jimmy Lee, who takes him to his apartment. Once there, Preach finds Cochise with his ex-girlfriend, Sandra, who Preach cheated on with Brenda. Preach becomes angry and retreats to Martha’s, where he sees Brenda there and apologizes for what happened between them. However, Damon is there, and Stone and Robert also show up shortly after being released from jail that morning. Still believing Preach and Cochise snitched on them, Stone and Robert chase Preach through Martha’s. Preach locks himself in Martha’s occupied bathroom while Martha intervenes and kicks Stone and Robert out with her meat cleaver. Preach tries to sneak out the side door, but is spotted by the pair who are waiting for him outside with Damon, and a chase ensues.
After evading the trio, Preach meets up with Brenda on the L train, where she informs him that Cochise went to Martha's looking for him. Preach immediately gets off the train to find him. Stone, Robert and Damon ultimately find Cochise under the L train tracks and beat him severely, with Damon throwing a punch that ends up slamming Cochise chin first into a metal beam, killing him. Upon realizing that Cochise is dead, Stone, Robert and Damon flee. Preach frantically searches for Cochise before it's too late and ultimately finds his lifeless body, his cries for help drowned out by an L train passing above.
At Cochise's funeral, Preach watches the burial from afar and goes to Cochise’s casket for a personal farewell after the mourners have departed. Toasting absent friends, Preach drinks from a wine bottle and recites a poem he wrote for Cochise. After promising Cochise that he and their friends will all be fine, Preach runs away from the cemetery feeling confident in his future.
The epilogue of the film reveals that Preach moved to Hollywood after graduation and became a successful screenwriter; Stone and Robert were killed in 1966 during a gas station holdup; Brenda became a librarian in Atlanta, got married, and had three children; Damon joined the Army and became a sergeant stationed in Europe; Pooter became a factory worker in Muncie, Indiana; and Tyrone was killed at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago during an outbreak of racial violence.
Monte based the film on his experiences attending the real-life Cooley Vocational High School (which closed in 1979) that served students from the Cabrini–Greenpublic housing project on Chicago's north side. While the film was set in and around Cabrini–Green, it was primarily filmed at another Chicago-area housing project. Monte has said that he wrote the film to dispel myths about growing up in the projects: "I grew up in the Cabrini–Green housing project and I had one of the best times of my life, the most fun you can have while inhaling and exhaling".[9]
Production
The movie was filmed from October through November 1974 in Chicago, Illinois. Some scenes include other areas of Chicago such as Navy Pier and the Gold Coast area but primarily in and around the Cabrini-Green housing project on the near-north side. Interior school scenes were shot at Chicago's Providence St. Mel High School.
Influence
Cooley High is seen as "changing the landscape" for black people in film, with its humane focus on the dreams of young inner-city black men, according to actor and film director Robert Townsend, who got his start in film with a one-line walk-on role in Cooley High.[10] Screenwriter and producer Larry Karaszewski holds that the film is also one of the great movies about real friendship, with outstanding performances by the male leads.[10]Boyz II Men named their debut album Cooleyhighharmony which featured a version of the song "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" from the Cooley High soundtrack. The 1991 movie Boyz in the Hood was influenced by Cooley High.[11][12]
During the 40th anniversary of the film's release, nationally syndicated news station NPR published a story that discussed some of the fondest memories that the cast and crew shared of the film's production. Actor Sherman Smith, now using the professional name Rick Stone, who played the character of Stone in the film, recalled how he was approached by producers of the film while playing basketball one day. The crew members were looking for realistic gang members to be a part of the cast, so after being tipped off by police, producers offered Stone and his sidekick Norman Gibson, who played the character of Robert in the film, a role in the movie.[13]
During this interview, screenwriter Eric Monte revealed that Cochise's untimely death in the film was inspired by a childhood friend of his who had been killed in a similar manner. Just as Preach headed to Hollywood after the death of Cochise, Monte reveals that after his friend was murdered, he hitchhiked his way to the west coast where he began working for shows such as Good Times and The Jeffersons.[13] Unfortunately, not everyone from the film went on to live a life of success. Nearly two years after the film's release, Norman Gibson was gunned down outside of his neighborhood.[13]
Reception
Cooley High was a critical and commercial success. Produced on a $750,000 budget,[1] the film grossed $13 million at the domestic box office,[2][3] making it one of the top 30 highest-grossing films of 1975.[14]
Jack Slater of The New York Times was positive, writing, "To be black and to watch 'Cooley High' is to see one's vanished innocence—and beauty." Slater acknowledged that the movie was being hailed as "a black American Graffiti" but he thought Cooley High had "far more vitality and variety" than that film.[15]Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 3.5 stars out of 4 and wrote that the opening 10 minutes "leave you with the impression that 'Cooley High' is going to be nothing more than a series of routine and unfunny gags. But then the film's magic begins to work, and 'Cooley High' turns into a beguiling story that's affecting, lasting, and worth seeing more than once."[16]
Arthur D. Murphy of Variety called it "a heartening comedy drama" with "a fine cast of young players" that were "well directed by Michael Schultz", adding that "you don't have to be black to enjoy it immensely."[17]Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called it "a landmark movie, one of the year's most important and heartening pictures, that shows what the black film can be when creative talents are given an opportunity free of the strong sex and violence requirements of the exploitation formulae."[18]
Jacqueline Trescott of The Washington Post was not so impressed, calling the film's nostalgia "deja vu and hackneyed, antiseptic even." She found several comic scenes to be "[w]ell-executed ... But these passages still lack a distinctive look and enough fire to raise 'Cooley' above the mediocre mark."[19] Reviewing Cooley High for The Monthly Film Bulletin in 1977, Jonathan Rosenbaum said that "Michael Schultz's first feature can be viewed with hindsight as the promising debut of a very talented director, intermittently doing what he can with an uneven and somewhat routine script."[20]
The film holds an 88% rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on reviews from 17 critics.[21] Filmmaker Spike Lee included the film on his essential film list entitled List of Films All Aspiring Filmmakers Must See.[22] The movie also ranked #23 on Entertainment Weekly's list of the 50 Best High School Movies.[23]Metacritic gave the film a score of 72 based in 8 reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[24]
Television adaptation
ABC planned a television adaptation of Cooley High, but the pilot was poorly received, and Fred Silverman, the head of the network, asked the pilot's producers, TOY Productions, to redo the show as a sitcom with new characters and with a new title so as not to confuse it with Monte's film Cooley High. New writers were hired, cast changes made, and a switch from one-camera to three-camera filming delivered What's Happening!! to the network, where it ran from August 5, 1976, to April 28, 1979. The show and the production company were then purchased by Columbia Pictures Television in 1979 and ran in syndication for a number of years.[25]
On July 19, 2016, it was reported that MGM was developing a remake of 1975 film Cooley High, with DeVon Franklin, Common and Tony Krantz. Seth Rosenfeld would write the screenplay.[27]
Nashville is a 1975 American satirical musical comedy drama film directed and produced by Robert Altman. The film follows various people involved in the country and gospel music industry in Nashville, Tennessee, over the five-day period leading up to a gala concert for a populist outsider running for president on the Replacement Party ticket.
The Rainmaker is a 1997 American legal drama film written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola based on John Grisham's 1995 novel of the same name. It stars Matt Damon, Claire Danes, Jon Voight, Mary Kay Place, Mickey Rourke, Danny DeVito, Danny Glover, Roy Scheider, Virginia Madsen, and Teresa Wright in her final film role.
Long Day's Journey into Night is a play in four acts written by American playwright Eugene O'Neill in 1939–1941 and first published posthumously in 1956. It is widely regarded as his magnum opus and one of the great American plays of the 20th century. It premiered in Sweden in February 1956 and then opened on Broadway in November 1956, winning the Tony Award for Best Play. O'Neill received the 1957 Pulitzer Prize for Drama posthumously for Long Day's Journey into Night. The work is openly autobiographical in nature. The "long day" in the title refers to the setting of the play, which takes place during one day.
Cabrini–Green Homes are a Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) public housing project on the Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois. The Frances Cabrini Rowhouses and Extensions were south of Division Street, bordered by Larrabee Street to the west, Orleans Street to the east and Chicago Avenue to the south, with the William Green Homes to the northwest.
Tyrone Edmund Power III was an American actor. From the 1930s to the 1950s, Power appeared in dozens of films, often in swashbuckler roles or romantic leads. His better-known films include Jesse James, The Mark of Zorro, Marie Antoinette, Blood and Sand, The Black Swan, Prince of Foxes, Witness for the Prosecution, The Black Rose, and Captain from Castile. Power's own favorite film among those in which he starred was Nightmare Alley.
Elliott Gould is an American actor.
Jeff Chandler was an American actor. He was best known for his portrayal of Cochise in Broken Arrow (1950), for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. He was one of Universal Pictures' more popular male stars of the 1950s. His other credits include Sword in the Desert (1948), Deported (1950), Female on the Beach (1955), and Away All Boats (1956). He also performed as a radio actor and as a singer.
The Warriors is a 1979 American action thriller film directed by Walter Hill. Based on Sol Yurick's 1965 novel of the same name, the film centers on a fictitious New York City street gang who must travel 30 miles (48 km) from the north end of the Bronx to their home turf on Coney Island in southern Brooklyn after they are framed for the murder of a respected gang leader. The film was theatrically released in the United States on February 9, 1979, by Paramount Pictures.
Candyman is a 1992 American gothic supernatural black horror film, written and directed by Bernard Rose and starring Virginia Madsen, Tony Todd, Xander Berkeley, Kasi Lemmons, and Vanessa E. Williams. Based on Clive Barker's short story "The Forbidden", the film follows a Chicago graduate student completing a thesis on urban legends and folklore, which leads her to the legend of the "Candyman", the ghost of an African-American artist and son of a slave who was murdered in the late 19th century for his relationship with the daughter of a wealthy white man.
George Tillman Jr. is an American filmmaker.
Robert Townsend is an American actor, director, comedian, and writer. Townsend is best known for directing the films Hollywood Shuffle (1987), Eddie Murphy Raw (1987), The Meteor Man (1993), The Five Heartbeats (1991) and various other films and stand-up specials. He is especially known for his portrayal of The WB's sitcom The Parent 'Hood 's main character Robert Peterson, the series he created and directed select episodes of ran from 1995 to 1999. Townsend is also known for his role as Donald "Duck" Matthews in his 1991 film The Five Heartbeats. He later wrote, directed and produced Making the Five Heartbeats (2018), a documentary film about the production process and behind the scenes insight into creating the film. Townsend is also known for his production company Townsend Entertainment which has produced films Playin' for Love, In the Hive and more. During the 1980s and early–1990s, Townsend gained national exposure through his stand-up comedy routines and appearances on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. Townsend has worked with talent including Halle Berry, Morgan Freeman, Chris Tucker, Beyoncé, Denzel Washington, Ayo Edebiri, and many more.
Hollywood Shuffle is a 1987 American satirical comedy film about the racial stereotypes of African Americans in film and television. The film tracks the attempts of Bobby Taylor to become a successful actor and the mental and external roadblocks he encounters, represented through a series of interspersed vignettes and fantasies. Produced, directed, and co-written by Robert Townsend, the film is semi-autobiographical, reflecting Townsend's experiences as a black actor when he was told he was not "black enough" for certain roles.
Glynn Turman is an American actor, director, writer, and producer. First coming to attention as a child actor in the original 1959 Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun, Turman is known for his roles as Lew Miles on the prime-time soap opera Peyton Place (1968–1969), high school student Leroy "Preach" Jackson in the 1975 coming-of-age film Cooley High, math professor and retired Army colonel Bradford Taylor on the NBC sitcom A Different World (1988–1993), and Baltimore mayor Clarence Royce on the HBO drama series The Wire. He received the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series for his role on the HBO drama series In Treatment.
The Black Rose is a 1950 British adventure historical film directed by Henry Hathaway and starring Tyrone Power and Orson Welles.
Massacre at Central High is a 1976 American thriller film directed by Rene Daalder and starring Derrel Maury, Kimberly Beck, Robert Carradine, and Andrew Stevens. The plot follows a series of revenge killings at a fictional American high school, after which the oppressed students take on the role of their bully oppressors. Despite its title, it is not a slasher film but an unusual blend of political allegory, social commentary, and low-budget exploitation; with the exception of the final sequence, no "adult" characters are seen.
Eric Monte is an American screenwriter and TV series creator. He is known for his work in depicting 1970s African-American culture. Monte wrote and created several sitcoms for television such as Good Times, The Jeffersons as a writer, What's Happening!!, and its spin-off series, What's Happening Now!!. The series was based on the coming of age film Cooley High, which Monte wrote and which was based on his high school experiences.
The Chase is a 1966 American drama film, directed by Arthur Penn, written by Lillian Hellman, and starring Marlon Brando, Jane Fonda, and Robert Redford. It tells the story of a series of events that are set into motion by a prison break. The film also features E. G. Marshall, Angie Dickinson, Janice Rule, Miriam Hopkins, Martha Hyer, Robert Duvall, and James Fox.
Brenda Starr is a 1989 American adventure film directed by Robert Ellis Miller based on Dale Messick's comic strip Brenda Starr, Reporter. It stars Brooke Shields, Timothy Dalton, and Jeffrey Tambor.
Invictus is a 2009 biographical sports film directed by Clint Eastwood and starring Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon, making it the third collaboration between Eastwood and Freeman after Unforgiven (1992) and Million Dollar Baby (2004). The story is based on the 2008 John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Made a Nation about the events in South Africa before and during the 1995 Rugby World Cup. The Springboks were not expected to perform well, the team having only recently returned to high-level international competition following the dismantling of apartheid—the country was hosting the World Cup, thus earning an automatic entry. Freeman portrays South African President Nelson Mandela while Damon played Francois Pienaar, the captain of the Springboks, the South Africa rugby union team.
Edwin Gilbert Cooley Vocational High School was a public 4–year vocational high school and middle school located in the Old Town neighborhood on the Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois, United States.
References
1 2 Aljean Harmetz (Aug 4, 1974). "The dime-store way to make movies-and money". The New York Times. p.202.
This template should only include schools controlled by and/or affiliated with CPS. If a charter school is still in operation but no longer affiliated with CPS, list as a former school.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
