Cooley High Movie Recap (1975)

 

50 years ago, Cooley High was released to theaters. This is film has been labeled as one of the most important pieces of black cinema. It was one of the first films that showcased lives of young black teenagers, which was pretty huge because most black films of 70s were label Blaxploitation flicks. This film came out in the height of the blaxploitation era and proven shift black film making. 50 years later, I think this film holds up fine. Want to know why, stay tuned and find out

Cooley High Movie Recap

The film is set in Chicago with Richard “Cochise” Morris going to his friends home in Leroy “Preach” Jackson. Preach has been skipping school all week and Cochise advise him to go to school as they are students at the now defunct Cooley Vocational High School. Let me take the time and mention the ages of Cochise and Preach, Lawrence Hilton Jacobs was 22 playing a high schooler and Glynn Turman was 28 playing a high schooler (kind of old if you telling me). But once there they finesse their way out by using the old nosebleed nail polish routine. Little did Preach new, he left the evidence on his desk, how smart of him this won’t be the only dumb thing he does in this film. You also have to remember there weren’t any cameras in high school back in the day, so skipping school was super easy. They decide to spend the day at the Lincoln Zoo and they wreak havoc like most teenagers do and the result of their tomfoolery it leads to Pooter getting gorilla dung flung on him.

After playing “Hookie”, they go to the after school hangout Martha’s and this is were we meet Stone & Robert local stickup kids (who really were stickup kids) and Preach was gambling. When he rolls the dice, a yellow bone name Brenda kicks the dice and Preach is in love, despite having a girlfriend and making a fool out of himself. She snitches to Martha and she kicks Preach out for gambling. We get some background on Cochise. He’s a star basketball player and thanks to his hard grind, he receives a scholarship to Grambling State. To celebrate, Preach and the boys celebrate but not before the crew make fun of Preach’s writing as he wants to become a writer. The drink the wine and they all put their mouth on the bottle and I want to remind you of this thing called COVID, five years later that thing still exsist. But before they drink Cochise decide to poor one out for the brothers who aint here.

After their celebration, they go to a quarter party. They dance to Motown music and this is the time where I want to shine the light on the soundtrack. For someone who grew up listening to the Motown classic, this was a huge highlight for me in this movie. But back to the film, Preach is reunited with Brenda and this encounter goes much better as they have a love for poetry. During the party, we meet hating ass Damon and he looks like he wants trouble. He immediately spots Cochise with his girl and the two get into a fist fight. They break an expensive glass counter that don’t belong to them.

We then see a scene of pimp hustling a client, don’t know why this was in the movie but let’s move on. The gang is outside singing under the moonlight (that what they did back in the day) until Pooter ruins it. After this, Stone & Robert show up in a Cadillac and this move would leave a ton of bad decisions. #1) Not realizing that the Cadillac Stone & Robert are driving was stolen. #2) Stone letting Preach driving knowing he can’t, his bad driving lead to unwanted police attention and high speed chase ensue, this whole seen of the driving was done in one take. They was able to evade 12 but they weren’t able to evade another vehicle (#3: Hitting a random vehicle) and it causes whiplash.

The next day, they try to study for the history midterm and their short attention span lead them to do something else. They want to go to the movies but they don’t have enough money to for all of them. So Preach & Cochise decide to rob two prostitutes. The watch one the older Godzilla movies. During the movie Pooter unintentionally cause an all-out brawl from the Chicago disciples. Imagine going to the movies and you get entertained by a brawl. Preach then gets connected with Brenda and they have fun in bed. And this scene kind of disturbs me, remember Glynn Turman was 28 but the actress who plays Brenda was actually a teenager. After the session, they are in a good mood until Preach blabs to Brenda about the bet. 

Monday comes and it’s test day and none of these men study and they come up with the plan to cheat. However, Mr. Mason (Garrett Morris) thwart this plan by letting Preach sit at his desk. Just when they beginning, the police come in and arrest Preach & Cochise for grand theft auto. The two men give different stories on what happened but they don’t snitch on each other. But thanks to some convincing by Mr. Mason their charges get dropped. But for Stone & Robert since they have priors, their luck isn’t great. Police sends Preach & Cochise home and this lead to Stone & Robert assuming that they snitched. Back home, his mother catches wind of all of his past actions and says a line all black kids have heard. At the end his mother said she tired and can’t do it no more, and fun fact she’s really tired.

Next day comes and word gets out that they snitched and this scene feature an uncredited appearance from future movie director Robert Townsend. At school, Mr. Mason finds Preach and they have a heart to heart about his wasted talents, he then tells Preach that it was he who got him out. After school, he goes off to tell Cochise the good news only to find him screwing Preach’s old fling. Leaving him to storm out. He goes to Martha’s and find Brenda and apologies for everything. Just in Stone & Robert walk in and Damon decides to fan the flames and they go after Preach. Stone & Robert get kicked out but they wait for Preach.

Meanwhile Cochise finds Brenda and she tells him about Stone and Robert and that’s when Cochise goes and look for him. Once Preach leave the chase is on, but Preach was able to evade them and he unites with Brenda. She tells him that Cochise went and look for him and Preach fears the worst. The worst occurs when Stone, Robert & Damon catches Cochise lacking and they give him a beating he’d never forget. Damon gets the last laugh and punches Cochise and his neck hit a piece of metal bridge. As Preach looks for him he’s too little and too late and find his friend dead. Fun Fact: Eric Monte who wrote this film had a whole extended scene where Preach and Cochise apologies to each other at the hospital just before Cochise caught his last breath. Assuming the movie was going too long, he cut the scene short for him to die near the metal bridge. After Cochise’s funeral, Preach has a whole monologue with him and it’s a heartfelt moment in this whole movie. The movie ends with the prototypical hood movie stereotype of them on what’s been up. Preach went to Hollywood and became a screenwriter, Stone & Robert were killed in a gas station hold up (what’s crazy was that Norman Gibson the actor who played Robert was killed in a dice holdup and Sherman “Stone” Smith served time for robbery), Brenda became a librarian and has three children and has the stereotype of “going to Atlanta to escape the hood”, Damon is a sergeant in the US Army (might’ve been his sentence for Cochise death because back in those time you can avoid jailtime if you enlist), Pooter works in a factory in Gary Indiana & Tyrone was killed in a riot at the 1968 Democratic Convention.

Final Thoughts: This is one of the most important films of all time. Before I get to cultural significance of this film, I need to get some thoughts out of the way first. Only have thoughts for three people. First we have instigating ass, hating ass Damon. Everywhere he go, he was looking for trouble. Got beat because Cochise was unintendedly kissing his girl and once word got out about Stone and Robert getting snitched on when they weren’t snitched on. Feel like he was the most responsible for Cochise’s demise since he was waiting for Stone and Robert to act on their revenge. Again moreso drafted into the military to avoid jail time or they ruled Cochise death an accident and Damon enlist out of guilt. Now Cochise, Cochise was the jock who had it all, basketball scholarship all the girls of his choosing, one nigh of bad decision would eventually lead to his demise. Preach, I watched a YouTube video of someone saying that he was the real villain of this movie and I get it. It was Preach who constantly skipped school, it was Preach who kept gambling at Martha’s after being told not to, it was Preach who drove the boys into a high speed chase (granted he was kind of pressured into doing it), It was Preach who smashed Brenda for just a dollar and a dream, and it was Preach that withheld information from Cochise and it eventually got him killed. Everything Preach could do wrong, he did wrong in this film. And it took Cochise’s death for him to runaway but it was he who was successful of the bunch. In conclusion, it was one of the most important films in black cinema as it influenced feature films directors like the late John Singelton, Spike Lee, and Robert Townsend as they all said that this movie influenced their future films. So if you haven’t seen this movie, go check it out it’s currently free on YouTube and don’t forget to pore one out for all the homies who aint here.