MM
minor homages to the cycle, cleverly casting
Frankie Avalon to sing ‘Beauty School Drop
Out’ in a sly inversion of his earlier beach roles.
Grease’s continuing popularity (it began life
as a stage show) might make it some people’s
choice of ultimate Teen movie (or even musical)
but, although I’m not immune to its charms, it
wouldn’t be mine. A little after Grease came
out, however, a film was released that took the
anarchic spirit of the earlier AIP Teenpics and
repackaged it for slightly more adult sensibilities,
and more relaxed censorship. National
Lampoon’s Animal House is typical of many
Teen comedies in that it was critically attacked
at the time, but has seen something of a re-
evaluation since. Animal House is credited with
reviving both college fraternities and toga parties
in American universities and the film gives its
name to a new sub-genre; the Animal Comedy,
without which we would have been blessed with
no Porkies or American Pie and the world, for
some, would be a duller place.
Almost as good as – but far less well-known
than – Animal House is Rock and Roll High
School. This minor masterpiece was directed
in 1979 for Roger Corman’s New World Pictures
and is an out and out homage to the rock ‘n’
roll Teenpics of two decades earlier (typified by
films such as Rock Around the Clock and Shake
Rattle and Rock), in which innocent teens bop
contentedly to the likes of Little Richard and Bill
Haley and his Comets. RARHS updates Bill Haley
to The Ramones – masters of two-minute speed
pop – and throws in the rock-music hating school
Principal, Miss Togar. Student cheerleader Riff
Randell, whose immediate ambition is to skip
school to get tickets for a Ramones gig, comes
into conflict with the fearsomely statuesque Miss
Togar, in league with a group of parents who
want to burn rock records. Unlike the rather more
conservative 1950s rock ‘n’ roll movies, which
generally sought to accommodate generational
differences and resolve their associated conflicts
by the film’s conclusion, Rock and Roll High
School gleefully celebrates its discord and
remains one of the few Teen movies I’ve seen
where the school actually does burn down at the
end.
Fast Times? Or Clueless?
The Teen genre is not short of auteurs either.
Director Amy Heckerling made her first notable
mark on the genre with Fast Times at Ridgemont
High in 1982, for which writer Cameron Crowe
adapted his own book, based on undercover
research he had undertaken by pretending
to be a high school student for a year. Robin
Wood has argued that Fast Times is the key
archetype for most of the high school movies
that followed. The film has many unforgettable
moments, not least Sean Penn’s character, Jeff
Spicoli, memorably adding the word ‘gnarly’ to
the great Teen lexicon - and Judge Reinhold’s
line ‘doesn’t anybody knock?’ uttered while
interrupted in mid-fantasy in the bathroom. Like
many of the greatest Teen movies Fast Times is
Images courtesy
an absolute snapshot of its time; blink and you’ll
of ©
image.net
miss Anthony Edwards, Phoebe Cates, Jennifer
and The Kobal
Jason Leigh, Forest Whitaker, Nicholas Cage and
Collection
Eric Stolz amongst the cast, while the soundtrack
56 MediaMagazine | February 2008 | english and media centre
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