High School Confidential! | |
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Directed by | Jack Arnold |
Written by | Robert Blees Lewis Meltzer |
Produced by | Albert Zugsmith |
Starring | Russ Tamblyn Jan Sterling John Drew Barrymore Mamie Van Doren Jerry Lee Lewis Ray Anthony Jackie Coogan Charles Chaplin Jr. Diane Jergens |
Cinematography | Harold J. Marzorati |
Edited by | Ben Lewis |
Music by | Albert Glasser |
Distributed by | Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer |
Release date |
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Running time | 84 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $532,000 [1] |
Box office | $1,915,000 [1] |
High School Confidential! is a 1958 American crime drama film directed by Jack Arnold, starring Mamie Van Doren, Russ Tamblyn, Jan Sterling, John Drew Barrymore, Jackie Coogan, Diane Jergens and Michael Landon.
The film also features a cameo by Jerry Lee Lewis who opens the movie singing “Boppin’ at the High School Hop” which Lewis co-wrote with Ron Hargrave. [2] [3] Lewis released the title track as a Sun Records 45 single which became a Top 40 hit, reaching #21 in the Billboard charts. [4] [5]
The film is listed in Golden Raspberry Award founder John Wilson's book The Official Razzie Movie Guide as one of The 100 Most Enjoyably Bad Movies Ever Made. [6]
Mike Wilson, a young police officer, poses as a student under the alias Tony Baker and thus infiltrates a high school in order to investigate a narcotics ring. He lives in an apartment with Gwen Dulaine, a married woman who pretends to be his aunt in public but attempts to seduce him in private.
"Tony" flirts with pupil Joan Staples and incurs the wrath of teacher Arlene Williams as he makes acquaintances in school. He discovers that Joan uses marijuana and inquires about where she purchases it. He ultimately learns that a mysterious man known only as "Mr. A" is the one who sells drugs to the students, helped by an assistant called Bix.
With help from an undercover cop, Quinn, who risks his life to save Mike's, the criminals are apprehended and Joan promises Mike that her drug use is over.
Veteran character actor Charles Halton appears uncredited in his last role as Mr. Robinson, the high school principal.
It was produced by Albert Zugsmith, the first of a six-picture deal he had signed with MGM. MGM would get 75% of the profits, Zugmsith 25%. [7] [8]
In January 1958 Russ Tamblyn, who had just made the movie Tom Thumb (1958), was assigned to star. Filming started February 1958. [9]
George Raft was meant to play a role but in March MGM announced Jackie Coogan would be playing the part instead. No explanation was given. [10]
The film was based on an original script by Lewis Meltzer and screen story by Robert Blees. and according to critic Dana M. Reemes “utterly preposterous from beginning to end.” [11]
High School Confidential! was conceived by Zugsmith, Meltzer and Blees and as a teenage exploitation film with an anti-marijuana message. [12] Director Jack Arnold recalls an exchanges with producer Zugsmith regarding the film’s style and theme:
Zugsmith wanted an out-and-out exploitation picture, a straight, preachy, [anti-drug] message film—and if I could put nudity into it that would be great! I got along very well with Zugsmith. I just didn’t agree with him on everything, but he didn’t insist, which was a pleasure. If he didn’t like what I did I would just say, “Well, I like it,” and he’d leave me alone. [13]
According to MGM records the film earned $1,290,000 in the US and Canada [14] and $625,000 elsewhere, resulting in a profit of $578,000. However, the follow-up films Zugsmith made for the studio, including The Beat Generation and Platinum High School , lost money. [1]
“High School Confidential! is deliberately and stylishly ludicrous, lampooning the anti-marijuana ideologies while glamorizing the erstwhile dopers. This latter aspect did not escape the federal narcotics people who sensed that the film was a dope, rock-and-roll, sex, and fast-car escapist fantasy for teens.—Biographer Dana M. Reemes in Directed by Jack Arnold (1988) [15]
This film is sampled on White Zombie's album La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1 on four separate occasions: the "Do you want to start a rumble?" conversation, the "Drop it, buster!" line, the "tomorrow's a drag" poem, and the Columbus speech ("the only thing square about this world...").
In the 1980 song "High School Confidential" by the Canadian new wave band Rough Trade (album: Avoid Freud), singer Carole Pope refers to the star of this film, Mamie Van Doren.
Mamie Van Doren is an American actress, singer, model, and sex symbol who rose to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. A blonde bombshell, she is known as one of the "Three M's" along with Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, who were friends and contemporaries. In 1953, Van Doren, then named Joan Lucille Olander, signed a seven-year contract with Universal, which hoped that she would be their version of Marilyn Monroe. During her time at Universal, she starred in teen dramas, exploitation films, musical, and comedy films among other genres. She has married five times, but notably had intimate affairs with many other Hollywood actors. She was one of the leading sex symbols in the 1950s.
The Beat Generation is a 1959 American crime film noir from Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer starring Steve Cochran and Mamie Van Doren, with Ray Danton, Fay Spain, Maggie Hayes, Jackie Coogan, Louis Armstrong, James Mitchum, Vampira, and Ray Anthony. It is a sensationalistic interpretation of the beatnik counterculture of the "Beat Generation" The movie was also shown under the title This Rebel Age. The movie is about a "beatnik" who is a serial rapist, who is pursued by a police detective. The director was Charles F. Haas. Richard Matheson and Lewis Meltzer are credited with the screenplay.
Russell Irving Tamblyn, also known as Rusty Tamblyn, is an American film and television actor and dancer.
Ray Anthony is a retired American bandleader, trumpeter, songwriter and actor. He is the last living member of the Glenn Miller Orchestra.
"High School Confidential" is a song by Canadian new wave band Rough Trade, from their 1980 album Avoid Freud. The band's breakthrough Top 40 hit in Canada, it remains their most famous song.
The term High School Confidential may refer to:
Albert Zugsmith was an American film producer, film director and screenwriter who specialized in low-budget exploitation films through the 1950s and 1960s.
Joanna Venetia Invicta Stevenson was an English actress.
"High School Confidential" is a 1958 song written by Jerry Lee Lewis and Ron Hargrave as the title song of the MGM movie of the same name directed by Jack Arnold.
The Lady Takes a Flyer is a 1958 American CinemaScope Eastmancolor comedy-drama romance film released by Universal Pictures. It was directed by Jack Arnold and written by Danny Arnold based on a story by Edmund H. North.
Follow the Boys is a 1963 American comedy film directed by Richard Thorpe and starring Connie Francis, Paula Prentiss, and Janis Paige, released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. Shot on location on the French and Italian Riviera, Follow the Boys was MGM's second film vehicle for top recording artist Francis following Where the Boys Are (1960). While Francis' role in the earlier film had been somewhat secondary, she had a distinctly central role in Follow the Boys playing Bonnie Pulaski, a newlywed traveling the Riviera.
The Private Lives of Adam and Eve is a 1960 Spectacolor comedy film starring Mickey Rooney, and Mamie Van Doren. It is an American B-movie in which the plot revolves around a modern couple who dream that they are Adam and Eve. Others of their acquaintance assume the roles of various characters from the Book of Genesis during the fantasy sequences.
The Tattered Dress is a 1957 American CinemaScope film noir crime film released by Universal Pictures and directed by Jack Arnold. It stars Jeff Chandler, Jeanne Crain, Jack Carson, Gail Russell and Elaine Stewart.
Black Eye is a 1974 American neo-noir action and blaxploitation film produced by Pat Rooney, directed by Jack Arnold and starring Fred Williamson. The film was based on the 1971 novel Murder on the Wild Side by Jeff Jacks.
Sex Kittens Go to College is a 1960 American comedy film by Allied Artists Pictures, produced and directed by Albert Zugsmith and starring Mamie Van Doren, Tuesday Weld and Mijanou Bardot. The film was also released in its European print with an additional nine-minute dream sequence showcasing the robot Thinko with four striptease dancers.
The Mouse That Roared is a 1959 British satirical comedy film on a Ban The Bomb theme, based on Leonard Wibberley's novel The Mouse That Roared (1955). It stars Peter Sellers in three roles: Duchess Gloriana XII; Count Rupert Mountjoy, the Prime Minister; and Tully Bascomb, the military leader; and co-stars Jean Seberg. The film was directed by Jack Arnold, and the screenplay was written by Roger MacDougall and Stanley Mann.
Vice Raid is a 1959 B-movie crime drama directed by Edward L. Cahn and starring Mamie Van Doren and Richard Coogan. It was issued on a double bill with Inside the Mafia.
The Big Operator is a black and white 1959 American crime/drama film starring Mickey Rooney as a corrupt union boss, with Steve Cochran, Mel Torme and Mamie Van Doren as co-stars. The film is a remake of Joe Smith, American (1942) with labor union thugs replacing Axis spies.
College Confidential is a 1960 American B-movie drama directed by Albert Zugsmith and starring Steve Allen, Jayne Meadows and Mamie Van Doren.
Night of the Quarter Moon is a 1959 American drama film directed by Hugo Haas and written by Franklin Coen and Frank Davis. The film stars Julie London, John Drew Barrymore, Anna Kashfi, Dean Jones, Agnes Moorehead and Nat King Cole. The film was released on March 4, 1959, by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.