Rock N Roll High School part 2
Another great scene, that gets innocently sexy, is when Riff takes over gym class to give a musical lecture about Rock and Roll High School, while the hall monitors spy on the class with evident pleasure. Meanwhile, over in the science lab, Miss Togar continues her mind control campaign, trying to explain to Mr. McGreedy and the gym teacher that rock and roll is truly dangerous. She begins with a poster-board presentation on how she has induced socially disruptive traits such as insomnia, musical indulgence, and a higher incidence of casual sex in white rats simply by experimentally exposing them to rock and roll. With respect to the clear and present danger of the Ramones concert in particular, Miss Togar explains that through testing with her Rock-o-Meter, a device for measuring “relative rock and roll intensity,” she has established that Ramones music exceeds all other rock music in intensity. After testing out the Rock-o-Meter, she directs her observers don protective earmuffs, places a helpless rat in an aquarium, and cranks up the volume on Lobotomy. The hapless rodent spontaneously detonates.
On the testosterone beat, Eagleabauer keeps working his plan to achieve the seduction of Riff for the benefit of Tom, procuring the “Warlock,” a latter-day Cro-Magnon love nest on wheels, all bad taste and glitter, embodying the masculine myth that women melt when confronted with a display of excess. Plying Tom with hard liquor, Eaglebauer triumphantly conducts his final strategy session with Tom in the van, assuring him that now that Riff has no tickets, she will naturally come to him. Riff, however, is protected from such crude designs upon her affections by her pure love of the Ramones. When Tom calls Riff to ask for a date, with Eaglebauer coaching from a large prompt-sheet, Riff accepts, planning to slip him to Kate, who will easily take Tom over the Ramones. Then, fate takes a twist as Screamin’ Steve takes to the air to announce a Ramones concert giveaway, two tickets for the first person who can recognize the name of the tune, which is right on the tip of Riff’s tongue, causing automotive recklessness and other mayhem to occur as Riff overcomes all obstacles to be the first caller to shout “Questioningly!” The girls are going to the concert, but when they break the news to Tom, he’s a bit put out. When Tom decides to drown his sorrows, though, Eaglebauer won’t hear of it, exhorting Tom that love conquers all, and worse, if Tom doesn’t get what he paid for, he’d be entitled to a refund.
For me, who had never been to a Ramones concert, Rock and Roll High School was a lesson I had to study, preparing for that moment when I would actually attend a show. Arkush cameos as the doorman, admitting one large rodent (with earmuffs to prevent explosion). Arkush’s cutting of that 22 hours of concert footage perfectly captured the pacing of a Ramones show, which in all my experiences, never varied at all. Every concert started abruptly, without introduction or chitchat. The kids came to hear music – let’s get to it. Every song followed after that with no breaks. When it was over, they’d do one, two, three encores. Then it was over, and you were listening to that big movie-western score by Kitaro, playing through the sound system, and you were back to reality, among the freaks, the leather and stud people, the edge people, of which you are one. Outside, it was usual in LA to find a deployment of fifty to a hundred police waiting for you in the parking lot at the conclusion of every Ramones concert, just to see if they could prod some adolescent into doing something stupid.
I Believe In Miracles became part of the Ramones repertoire long after Rock and Roll High School was produced, but for those of us who needed miracles back in the eighties and nineties, the film was proof that some miracles occur. A movie can be made about punk rock with humor. True love can conquer all. The school authorities can be defeated. Kate and Tom really are meant for each other, and are united in a blissful moment at the foot of the stairwell, as an honor guard of big-hipped cheerleaders high-step down the stairs as Do You Wanna Dance slips into gear, a three-bar wind-up before Joey pops the clutch with his voice and launches the melody, a happy, childish playground lyric of bright tones against the metallic blur of Johnny’s guitar.
Do you wanna dance and hold my hand?
Tell me baby I’m your lovin’ man,
Oh baby, do you wanna dance?
This could have been the joyful climax of the film, but Roger Corman had that one stipulation – that the school be blown up. So Riff enlists the Ramones in her campaign of destruction, locking herself and her fellow-rebels into the administration office, chainsawing the files, throwing school desks and the hall monitors out the upper windows, and engaging the police in a life or death confrontation that receives on the spot coverage from “Screamin’ Steve,” the radio host with the red suit in front of the police car, in case you couldn’t see him. Kate, who has spent a lot of time “splitting protons in the basement,” according to her mom, thus blossoms into a pyrotechnic expert, one-upping the police decisively by detonating the entire institution. Arkush says the explosion actually was five times as big as intended, due to a miscalculation of the right amount of naphthalene to use for the job, due to changing atmospheric conditions. Bullshit. Those special effects guys know there’s more risk of not getting paid if your bomb is too small, and the shot is a dud, than if your bomb is a bit too big, and scares the actors. Of course if it is so big that it knocks down a helicopter, which decapitates Rod Steiger and a couple of little kids while filming a Twilight Zone episode, you probably get a lot of shit for that. You might end up on worker’s comp, sidelined with “stress.”
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On the testosterone beat, Eagleabauer keeps working his plan to achieve the seduction of Riff for the benefit of Tom, procuring the “Warlock,” a latter-day Cro-Magnon love nest on wheels, all bad taste and glitter, embodying the masculine myth that women melt when confronted with a display of excess. Plying Tom with hard liquor, Eaglebauer triumphantly conducts his final strategy session with Tom in the van, assuring him that now that Riff has no tickets, she will naturally come to him. Riff, however, is protected from such crude designs upon her affections by her pure love of the Ramones. When Tom calls Riff to ask for a date, with Eaglebauer coaching from a large prompt-sheet, Riff accepts, planning to slip him to Kate, who will easily take Tom over the Ramones. Then, fate takes a twist as Screamin’ Steve takes to the air to announce a Ramones concert giveaway, two tickets for the first person who can recognize the name of the tune, which is right on the tip of Riff’s tongue, causing automotive recklessness and other mayhem to occur as Riff overcomes all obstacles to be the first caller to shout “Questioningly!” The girls are going to the concert, but when they break the news to Tom, he’s a bit put out. When Tom decides to drown his sorrows, though, Eaglebauer won’t hear of it, exhorting Tom that love conquers all, and worse, if Tom doesn’t get what he paid for, he’d be entitled to a refund.
For me, who had never been to a Ramones concert, Rock and Roll High School was a lesson I had to study, preparing for that moment when I would actually attend a show. Arkush cameos as the doorman, admitting one large rodent (with earmuffs to prevent explosion). Arkush’s cutting of that 22 hours of concert footage perfectly captured the pacing of a Ramones show, which in all my experiences, never varied at all. Every concert started abruptly, without introduction or chitchat. The kids came to hear music – let’s get to it. Every song followed after that with no breaks. When it was over, they’d do one, two, three encores. Then it was over, and you were listening to that big movie-western score by Kitaro, playing through the sound system, and you were back to reality, among the freaks, the leather and stud people, the edge people, of which you are one. Outside, it was usual in LA to find a deployment of fifty to a hundred police waiting for you in the parking lot at the conclusion of every Ramones concert, just to see if they could prod some adolescent into doing something stupid.
I Believe In Miracles became part of the Ramones repertoire long after Rock and Roll High School was produced, but for those of us who needed miracles back in the eighties and nineties, the film was proof that some miracles occur. A movie can be made about punk rock with humor. True love can conquer all. The school authorities can be defeated. Kate and Tom really are meant for each other, and are united in a blissful moment at the foot of the stairwell, as an honor guard of big-hipped cheerleaders high-step down the stairs as Do You Wanna Dance slips into gear, a three-bar wind-up before Joey pops the clutch with his voice and launches the melody, a happy, childish playground lyric of bright tones against the metallic blur of Johnny’s guitar.
Do you wanna dance and hold my hand?
Tell me baby I’m your lovin’ man,
Oh baby, do you wanna dance?
This could have been the joyful climax of the film, but Roger Corman had that one stipulation – that the school be blown up. So Riff enlists the Ramones in her campaign of destruction, locking herself and her fellow-rebels into the administration office, chainsawing the files, throwing school desks and the hall monitors out the upper windows, and engaging the police in a life or death confrontation that receives on the spot coverage from “Screamin’ Steve,” the radio host with the red suit in front of the police car, in case you couldn’t see him. Kate, who has spent a lot of time “splitting protons in the basement,” according to her mom, thus blossoms into a pyrotechnic expert, one-upping the police decisively by detonating the entire institution. Arkush says the explosion actually was five times as big as intended, due to a miscalculation of the right amount of naphthalene to use for the job, due to changing atmospheric conditions. Bullshit. Those special effects guys know there’s more risk of not getting paid if your bomb is too small, and the shot is a dud, than if your bomb is a bit too big, and scares the actors. Of course if it is so big that it knocks down a helicopter, which decapitates Rod Steiger and a couple of little kids while filming a Twilight Zone episode, you probably get a lot of shit for that. You might end up on worker’s comp, sidelined with “stress.”
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