Rock N Roll High School part 1
For an album with a saccharine title, this movie packs an incredible kick, but of course — it has the Ramones in it! Alan Arkush, working for sleazy producer Roger Corman, directed Mary Woronow in the role of Miss Togar, the new principal of Vince Lombardi High, facing her off against PJ Soles as Riff Randell, the Ramones' Number One Fan, or as Miss Togar would have it, “a spoiled teenage heathen punk”. According to Arkush, the production was completed for $280,000, operating within Roger Corman’s stingy budget, by finessing all rules, including fire safety and noise laws, and any other rule not enforced by the Director’s Guild, Actor’s Guild or Writer’s Guild. The guiding vision was Corman’s desire to blow up the school at the end using real explosions, but Corman’s big kaboom is put into the shade by the truly explosive Ramones concert footage.
The plot can’t lose any power by being revealed, because it is no plot, just a stretched rubber band of teenage eroticism, yearning, and rebellion pulled to the breaking point and then allowed to snap. Riff is single-mindedly devoted to Joey, whom she likens to “a poem” while sharing romantic confidences with her friend Kate Rambeau, the school genius. Kate pines after the top jock, Tom, played by Vince Van Patten, who isn’t attracted to her, and instead buys a “contract” for Riff’s affections from the school’s budding sleazebag, Eaglebauer, who hosts Lombardi High’s black market from a secret office in the smoke-filled Boy’s Room. The contract comes complete with a training makeout session in front of a roll-down screen of a romantic LA night in the full light of day on Topanga Canyon, an experience that leaves Tom feeling high and dry when confronted with a convertible, the city-lights backdrop, and a willing Kate as his “training partner.”
Riff has to attend the concert at all costs, so she takes her sleeping bag, chaise lounge, and thermos out to a location that Angelenos will recognize as the Mayan Theatre in downtown LA, where she camps out at the box office with her cardboard cutouts of the Ramones. Meanwhile, Kate backs Riff up with forged notes for missing school that serially announce the deaths of Riff’s mother, father, and finally, her goldfish. “They say these things happen in threes,” explains Kate. Out on the front lines, Riff learns a lesson about the tough side of rock and roll, when demonic groupy “Angel Dust” cuts into line in front of her, mocking Riff’s 72 hours of devotion and her wardrobe before telling Riff to “put it where the monkey puts the nut.” This retort stymies Riff into bemusement that is abruptly shattered by the military stamp of Johnny slamming out the opening chords of I Just Wanna Have Somethin’ To Do. This sonic detonation heralds the screen arrival of the boys in a vermillion-colored 1958 Cadillac convertible, bearing a license plate that reads “GABBA-GABBA-HEY.” Joey is sitting like a king on the trunk, his long legs planted in the back seat, eating a chicken leg that he gaily tosses away, half-eaten. When the car stops, the Ramones clamber out like soldiers getting out of a truck. Arkush says the Ramones were not very comprehending of the concept of acting, and that’s their charm. They’re not acting. They’re being Ramones, a group of guys who were lovable particularly because of their simplicity. Arkush wisely also exploited the local rock scene to dredge up fanatical scenesters willing to pay to be in a Ramones movie, working up to a 22-hour marathon concert at the Roxy that rotated three casts of audience extras to rock out to the same songs repeatedly through take after take, until their patience was exhausted and another audience would replace them.
Despite the run-in with Angel Dust, Riff gets tickets for herself and all of her friends at school. Riff even gives a spare ticket to the proto-beatnik music teacher, Mr. McGreedy, who asks Riff when presented with the ticket, “What are Ramonees?” Miss Togar is less good humored about Riff’s prolonged absence from school, particularly because Riff’s final excuse involving the goldfish has been conclusively proven false, stimulating some Belushi-style sushi consumption by one of Miss Togar’s Hitler Youth hall monitors. Miss Togar then directs the hall monitors, eager to conduct a body search, to confiscate the girls’ tickets, leaving them a bit disheveled, and entirely bummed. Fortunately, Joey comes to sweetly console Riff in her room after she puts on a record and fires up a joint, a little vignette that even includes a shower scene displaying PJ’s really skinny back.
Next Page --->
The plot can’t lose any power by being revealed, because it is no plot, just a stretched rubber band of teenage eroticism, yearning, and rebellion pulled to the breaking point and then allowed to snap. Riff is single-mindedly devoted to Joey, whom she likens to “a poem” while sharing romantic confidences with her friend Kate Rambeau, the school genius. Kate pines after the top jock, Tom, played by Vince Van Patten, who isn’t attracted to her, and instead buys a “contract” for Riff’s affections from the school’s budding sleazebag, Eaglebauer, who hosts Lombardi High’s black market from a secret office in the smoke-filled Boy’s Room. The contract comes complete with a training makeout session in front of a roll-down screen of a romantic LA night in the full light of day on Topanga Canyon, an experience that leaves Tom feeling high and dry when confronted with a convertible, the city-lights backdrop, and a willing Kate as his “training partner.”
Riff has to attend the concert at all costs, so she takes her sleeping bag, chaise lounge, and thermos out to a location that Angelenos will recognize as the Mayan Theatre in downtown LA, where she camps out at the box office with her cardboard cutouts of the Ramones. Meanwhile, Kate backs Riff up with forged notes for missing school that serially announce the deaths of Riff’s mother, father, and finally, her goldfish. “They say these things happen in threes,” explains Kate. Out on the front lines, Riff learns a lesson about the tough side of rock and roll, when demonic groupy “Angel Dust” cuts into line in front of her, mocking Riff’s 72 hours of devotion and her wardrobe before telling Riff to “put it where the monkey puts the nut.” This retort stymies Riff into bemusement that is abruptly shattered by the military stamp of Johnny slamming out the opening chords of I Just Wanna Have Somethin’ To Do. This sonic detonation heralds the screen arrival of the boys in a vermillion-colored 1958 Cadillac convertible, bearing a license plate that reads “GABBA-GABBA-HEY.” Joey is sitting like a king on the trunk, his long legs planted in the back seat, eating a chicken leg that he gaily tosses away, half-eaten. When the car stops, the Ramones clamber out like soldiers getting out of a truck. Arkush says the Ramones were not very comprehending of the concept of acting, and that’s their charm. They’re not acting. They’re being Ramones, a group of guys who were lovable particularly because of their simplicity. Arkush wisely also exploited the local rock scene to dredge up fanatical scenesters willing to pay to be in a Ramones movie, working up to a 22-hour marathon concert at the Roxy that rotated three casts of audience extras to rock out to the same songs repeatedly through take after take, until their patience was exhausted and another audience would replace them.
Despite the run-in with Angel Dust, Riff gets tickets for herself and all of her friends at school. Riff even gives a spare ticket to the proto-beatnik music teacher, Mr. McGreedy, who asks Riff when presented with the ticket, “What are Ramonees?” Miss Togar is less good humored about Riff’s prolonged absence from school, particularly because Riff’s final excuse involving the goldfish has been conclusively proven false, stimulating some Belushi-style sushi consumption by one of Miss Togar’s Hitler Youth hall monitors. Miss Togar then directs the hall monitors, eager to conduct a body search, to confiscate the girls’ tickets, leaving them a bit disheveled, and entirely bummed. Fortunately, Joey comes to sweetly console Riff in her room after she puts on a record and fires up a joint, a little vignette that even includes a shower scene displaying PJ’s really skinny back.
Next Page --->