Cooley High (1975) centres on Preach (Glynn Turman), a young, aspiring writer growing up in the Near-North Side of Chicago, where he attends the real-life Edwin Gilbert Cooley Vocational High School. The movie follows the lives of Preach, his best friend Cochise (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs), and his other friends as they try to navigate high school and their lives in general. Beyond Preach's dream of becoming a writer, Cooley High does not have a central plot, but is instead more a collection of vignettes. As might be expected given it is set in 1964, Motown songs figure prominently in its soundtrack.
Cooley High was based on the real life experiences of screenwriter Eric Monte. Eric Monte dreamed of becoming a writer, much like Preach in the film, and grew up in the the Cabrini–Green housing project. He dropped out of high school in his junior year and enlisted in the United States Army. Once his service had ended, he hitch-hiked to Hollywood. Arriving there in 1968, he saw no success as a writer until one of his friends, actor Mike Evans was cast in the recurring role of Lionel Jefferson on All in the Family. Mike Evans persuaded Eric Monte to write a script that would expand his role as Lionel, and the script was accepted. He also co-created the sitcom Good Times. He would eventually sue CBS, Tandem Productions, producers Norman Lear and Jerry Perenchio for misappropriating his ideas for The Jeffersons and Good Times.
It was while Eric Monte was contributing dialogue to the animated film The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974) that the film's producer Steve Krantz encouraged Mr. Monte to write a screenplay based on his experiences in Chicago. In an interview with The Los Angeles Times, he said that he wrote the screenplay to dispel misconceptions about growing up in the projects. The resulting screenplay would be picked up by American International Pictures (AIP). Michael Schultz, who had directed the movies Together for Days (1972) and Honeybaby, Honeybaby (1974), was hired as the director of Cooley High.
As might be expected of a movie produced by AIP, Cooley High was shot on a limited budget and in a brief amount of time. It was budgeted at $750,000 and its shooting schedule was 25 days. Cooley High was shot at real-life locations in Chicago, including the Cabrini-Green Public Housing Projects, Lincoln Park Zoo, and Providence-St. Mel High School.
Cooley High proved to be a success. It received largely positive reviews and made $13 million at the box office. This success would lead to ABC planning a TV show based on the movie. ABC was not happy with the pilot, and it was retooled as the sitcom What's Happening!!. While Cooley High was set in 1964, What's Happening!! was set in the present day.
Much of the success of Cooley High may have been due to a nostalgia craze that lasted for much of the Seventies. While many people associate the Seventies nostalgia craze with nostalgia for the Fifties, it actually included other eras as well, among them the Twenties (the movie The Great Waldo Pepper), the Depression (the TV show The Waltons), and the post-war years (the TV show Ellery Queen). Among these eras that the Seventies nostalgia craze included was the early to mid-Sixties. American Graffiti (1974), Cooley High, and Animal House (1978) were all set in this era.
Of course, most of the success of Cooley High may have been that it was an utterly unique movie. In the Seventies movies centred on Black families or on Black teenagers were unknown. One almost never saw a film set in the projects, let alone one that treated the projects somewhat positively. Cooley High was then a singular film in that it dealt with Black teenagers growing up in the projects in 1964 in a sensitive, non-sensationalistic fashion. It is notable that Sounder (1972), which centred on Black sharecroppers in the Thirties, also met with success. Well done films about the Black experience were nearly non-existent in the Seventies, so that when one came out it was bound to find an audience.
Cooley High is a very well done movie. Eric Monte's script captures 1964 Chicago with sympathy and thoughtfulness. Michael Schultz's direction captures the energy of both the era and its young protagonists. The cast delivers great performances throughout the film, a remarkable feat given many of them were inexperienced (for Cynthia Davis, who played Preach's love interest Brenda, Cooley High was her first and last time in front of a camera). Together the script, direction, and acting give us characters we can care about, characters we can sympathize with, and even characters one can identify with. If Cooley High was a hit upon its release and continues to be popular, it is because it gave us characters that audiences can truly love.
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