Rock 'n' Roll High School

Plot synopsis:
The school board meets to welcome Miss Evelyn Togar (Mary Woronov), Vince Lombardi High School's new principal -- the old principal having been driven insane by the unruly students. Riff Randell (P.J. Soles) and her nerdy friend Kate Rambeau (Dey Young) hijack the PA system to play some music ("Sheena Is a Punk Rocker"). Miss Togar interupts the dance party and gives them both detention. Miss Togar then announces to the assembled students that Vince Lombardi High School has the worst academic standing in California. Three principals in a row have suffered nervous breakdowns because the student body cares about nothing but rock and roll music. Miss Togar vows to the students that she will clean up the school and make it a center of learning. Intimidated, the kids rush off to their classes.Kate has a crush on the quarterback, Tom Roberts (Vincent Van Patten), who has the hots for Riff. Tom is shy with girls -- all he can think of to talk about is the weather -- so rather than ask Riff out, he goes to see the school's fixer, Eaglebauer (Clint Howard), who has an office in the boys' restroom. Eaglebauer agrees to get Tom a date with Riff. His task becomes complicated the very next day when Kate asks him to get her a date with Tom.Riff, an aspiring singer and songwriter, has written a song called "Rock 'n' Roll High School" for her favorite band, the Ramones. Her heart belongs to lead singer Joey Ramone, and she hopes that one day she'll be able to give the song to Joey and that the band will record it.Miss Togar sends her two geek minions, hall monitors Fritz Hansel (Loren Lester) and Fritz Gretel (Daniel Davies), to summon Mr. McGree (Paul Bartel), the music teacher, and Coach Steroid (Alix Elias), the gym teacher, to the science lab. Togar has been researching the effects of rock music. She shares her findings with Mr. McGree and Coach Steroid, and performs a demonstration: Ramones music played at high decibel levels makes mice explode. Meanwhile the girls' gym class, left unsupervised, is rocking out to unauthorized music -- Riff singing along to her demo tape of "Rock 'n' Roll High School". Fritz Hansel and Fritz Gretel happen by and rat the girls out, but before Togar arrives, the class goes back to the boring calisthenics they were supposed to be doing.In the girls' locker room, Riff announces that the Ramones are coming to town to give a concert and she plans to go. The other girls, though enthusiastic, can't take time away from school to wait in the ticket line for three days. Riff resolves to get tickets for everyone.At the concert hall, Riff is first in line. She sets up a folding lounge chair and settles in to wait. Back at school, Kate gives Miss Togar notes with increasingly implausible excuses to cover for Riff's absence: the death of her mother, the death of her father, and the death of her goldfish. (Hansel and Gretel disprove this excuse by producing the goldfish, which seems perfectly healthy until one of them swallows it.) The ticket line gets longer and a groupie, Angel Dust (Lynn Farrell), cuts in front of Riff to claim the first place in line. Their argument is interrupted by the arrival of the Ramones in a big old convertible, singing "I Just Want to Have Something to Do." The band's manager recognizes Angel Dust and invites her to come in with the band, much to Riff's chagrin.When the ticket window finally opens, Riff buys 100 tickets and later distributes them at school. Miss Togar gets wind of the concert and demands that Riff and Kate surrender their tickets. When they refuse, Togar lets the hall monitors take the tickets by force ("body search!"). Disheveled and despondent at the prospect of missing the concert, the girls retreat to Riff's house to do homework.Meanwhile, Eaglebauer is with Tom in Tom's tricked-out van, coaching him on how to ask Riff for a date. Tom calls just as Kate confesses to Riff that she thinks Tom will soon ask her (Kate) out. Kate is furious when Riff agrees to go out with Tom, but Riff assures her that she only accepted so she can fix up Tom and Kate.In Riff's car, Kate and Riff hear a DJ giving away a pair of Ramones tickets on the radio. Frantic to win the tickets, Riff pulls the car over and they pull a man out of a phone booth (the poor guy's proposing to his girlfriend) so they can use the phone. When they hear they've won, Riff calls Tom to break their date and the girls rush back to Riff's place to dress for the show.That evening, concert-goers file into the club, which is growing crowded. The kindly Mr. McGree attends out of curiosity, but his outdated idea of cool clubwear (a '50s-era beret and a '60s-era scarf) elicits some snickers. A large white mouse is denied admission -- the staff is afraid the music will cause him to explode -- until he produces a pair of noise-canceling headphones. An Indian chief in full feathered headdress is also attending.Riff and Kate are introduced on stage by the DJ who ran the ticket contest, Screamin' Steve Stevens (Don Steele). Offered the chance to say a few words to the crowd and the radio audience (which includes Miss Togar), Riff says "On behalf of the students from Vince Lombardi High who are here tonight, I'd just like to say one thing: Screw you, Principal Togar, we made it to the concert anyway!"Screamin' Steve tries to get Riff and Kate backstage to meet the band, but the Ramones' manager isn't having any, and tells Angel Dust, the groupie, to see the girls back to their seats. The crowd is revved up and shouting "hey, ho! let's go!" when the band takes the stage to open with "Blitzkrieg Bop." Riff has to encourage Kate to get into it, but Kate begins to loosen up and enjoy herself during the next song, "Teenage Lobotomy." During the following number, "California Sun," Angel attempts to steal the song Riff wrote. Tom, who has come to the concert with Eaglebauer, chases her and gets hold of the package when Angel trips over a cokehead who's spilled his powder on the floor. Riff offhandedly thanks Tom for his help and runs back to the concert. Tom sees that only Kate really cares about him and they agree to be friends. Back on stage, Joey (reading a note from Riff) dedicates the next song, "She's the One," to Tom and Kate.At the same time Miss Togar's minions, Hansel and Gretel, crash the concert looking for Riff. Instead they find Angel Dust in the Ramones' dressing room. When Angel Dust mouths off to them, they yell "body search!" and attack her. Riff eventually gets backstage to give Joey her song.A few days later, Miss Togar and several concerned parents hold a rally where they try to burn a pile of Ramones records in front of the school. Riff and Tom throw a bowl of water at the bonfire and at Miss Togar. When most of the students begin to riot, the Ramones arrive and all the students cheer for them. Taking over the group, Riff, Tom, Kate, Eaglebauer and others storm the school and throw a large climactic party. Mr. McGree, finally seeing the ruthless and authoritarian figure that Miss Togar has become, defects and joins the students -- and the party -- in the school. Hansel and Gretel sneak in to stop the party, but when they're discovered hiding in a laundry cart, the Ramones themselves push the cart out of a third floor window. Miss Togar's henchmen end up in bandages and casts with multiple injuries.During the party, Riff announces that the Ramones are honorary members of the student body. The Ramones give Riff a Ramones jacket and makes her an honorary member of their band. The band plays "Do You Wanna Dance" while Kate and Tom dance together and make out, having found love at last. The students proceed to party and wreck most of the building with the loud music.But that evening, a furious Miss Togar calls the police and the building is surrounded by riot officers led by Chief Klein (Dick Miller). When Miss Togar, speaking through a bullhorn, demands that the students stop the festivities, Riff responds by destroying all the mid-term exams and all the student records with a chainsaw. More angry than ever, Miss Togar and Chief Klein threaten to storm the building with tear gas unless the students exit the premises within five minutes.With few options left, Kate and Eaglebauer devise a bomb in the laboratory. Aware that their party is finally over, the Ramones, Riff, Kate, Tom, Eaglebauer, Mr. McGree, and all the students quietly file out of the building where the riot police are poised to attack. Riff steps forward and tells Miss Togar that if she wants to have her school back, she can. When a surprised Togar asks Riff what she would have done with the school anyway, Riff says "Rock the roof off it! Hit it, Marky!" -- and the band launches into Riff's song, "Rock 'n' Roll High School." The students and Ramones resume their party and Riff detonates the bomb. The school explodes spectacularly.As Vince Lombardi High School burns, fire trucks arrive. The students are led away, still happy and partying, to police buses waiting to take them to jail, while Miss Togar is taken away in an ambulance in a straight-jacket mumbling "detention" over and over. She has become the latest principle to be carted away to a mental hospital.

Tags: absurd, cult

Review:
Great Ramones set and lots of other cool music featured (MC5, Devo, Eno, Todd and Eddie and the Hot Rods "Teenage Depression") puts this at the top of the Rock'n'Roll heap.Too cool for school!!.
Well, I have finally caught up with "Rock 'N' Roll High School," almost 30 years after it first became a midnight movie sensation in 1979.
It tells the story of Riff Randell, adorably played by P.J. Soles, and the battle that she and her fellow students at Vince Lombardi High wage against their new repressive principal, Miss Togar.
Riff is, of course, the #1 fan of that original punk band The Ramones, and that band dishes out a baker's dozen of its greatest songs during the course of the film, including five at a concert that is a total blast.
It's a lot of fun, especially for fans of Eating Raoul....(Paul Bartel as an uptight music teacher who really loosens up to the Ramones and Mary Woronov as an insane principal with a real vendetta against rock n' roll, and the Ramones in particular).
The Ramones themselves looked pretty bewildered most of the time (especially Joey) but somehow they fit in to the high energy level of the other actors (especially P.J. Soles, who really should have made more movies) and the various shenanigans, many of which are pretty bizarre..
Unlike those ridiculous B-Movies he made prior to this one, Rock 'n Roll High School is actually cool!
In this one, the protagonist is a teen girl who is a hard-core Ramones fan, and she and her fellow classmates are up against a dictator-like principal who wants to make the school a living hell.
Rock 'n Roll High School is a really fun, edgy, tongue-in-cheek, feel good kind of movie!
An extremely silly and overdone comedy, the film is nevertheless still reasonably entertaining, as the songs are good, the characters are relatively fun to watch, and there are some genuine laughs along the way.
Also, it would have been nice to get to know the characters a bit better, but then were the filmmakers really trying to do something better than a run-of-the-mill high school set film, or were they just out to have fun, like their characters are?
Throw in, too, all the elements of a Roger Corman-produced comedy-exploitation film, except for the two-day shooting schedule, some of the familiar Corman repertory players like Clint Howard, Mary Wournow and Dick Miller (there since "Bucket of Blood"), and you've got one of the great stoopid movies of the day.
I showed the new DVD to a friend who could only remember seeing parts of it through a stoner- induced haze at the drive-in, and he agreed that this is one of the great movies to be watching drunk, not the least for the lovely leading ladies and the great Ramones footage..
Rock 'n' Roll High School was one of the best movies ever made!
Rock 'n' Roll High School was one of the best movies ever made!
So everybody showed see Rock 'n' Roll High School if your a huge fan of real PUNK.
It's amazing that actress P.J. Soles didn't become a big star after playing Riff Randell, #1 fan of the punk rock group the Ramones, in "Rock 'n' Roll High School".
Mary Woronov, a kinky and funny presence as the Nazi-like principal, gets a great, one-of-a-kind bit at the beginning where Frisbees fly dangerously close to her head (how many takes did they use on that, or was it a fluke?) and Dey Young is very appealing as Randell's best friend, Kate Rambeau.
If you're not a fan of the post disco music scene that The Ramones represented you're probably not going to like Rock "N" Roll High School.
Stylistically Rock 'N' Roll High School borrows from A Hard Day's Night and from Grease and the mix is good.It ain't exactly my kind of music and it's not O'Neill or Shakespeare, but the film is amusing and harmless.And the ending is the dream of a lot of teenagers..
I attended MANY Ramones shows at CBGB's from 75 through 77, and I remember Joey telling me they wouldn't be around for a while because they were going to California to make a high school movie.
Putting the plot, setting, and production values aside, if you are interested in what a Ramones live performance was like in the semi-early days, you should fast-forward to the scenes in this movie in which the Ramones appear.
If that still doesn't do anything for you, then don't even bother finishing the movie; it's not for you.But if watching got you sweaty and excited, then rejoice that Film has accurately and eternally captured the unrelenting ultra-energy and comic-book sexuality of a typical Ramones performance.
Personally I think this kind of business is a cool idea, shame I didn't have this kind of business in my high school or collage for help.Mary Wornov as Miss Evelyn Togar is a fun villainous you love to hate, it's sort of ironic that she also got to play the main villainous in "Rock n Roll High School Forever" but that's a different story.
And of course once she presses that wrong button with Riff as well as ourselves, you know she's got to go down.The comedy I think is very good, the best and most hilarious of course is the high school takeover which despite occurring at the last minutes of the film are clearly the highlight and payoff of the film.
In a way this film is sort of a musical as we constantly hear rock songs, one musical sequence from P.J. Soles and the other students, but most of all songs from the band "The Ramones".
Their songs are just fantastic, they sing one of my favorite theme songs of all which of course is the title itself.I even like that in a way the film has a good message showing that music and anything else in entertainment are rights and aren't the cause of social problems.Rockin Roll High School hits all the right notes.Rating: 3 and a half stars.
Now rather than reveal any more of this film and risk spoiling it for those who haven't seen it I will just say that watching this movie was like watching a train wreck in slow motion--I had to keep watching in spite of the fact that the humor was hit-or-miss, the music wasn't exactly my style and the end was totally predictable.
A group of rock-music-loving students, with the help of the Ramones, take over their school to combat its newly installed oppressive administration.There really is not much that can be said about this film -- the plot is nothing special and the acting is pretty average.
Even so, memories of your days in high school are relatable with some poignant reflections of what hell it was during that time (like a dorky kid being stuffed inside a locker.) The climax of the film benefits from real pyrotechnics and of course great music..
I've never been a fan of PJ Soles and it didn't help to hear that she didn't even know who the Ramones were until she filmed this movie, but I can ignore her snarly little face for the most part.
Riff Randell is a wildly, obsessed fan of the rock group; The Ramones and so are most of the students in the school.
But a new tyrant of a principal, Ms. Togar thinks rock 'n' roll is a bad influence on the students, especially the music from The Ramones.
While, this is happening Tom Roberts is totally love struck over Riff, but Riff's friend Kate Rambeau feels the same way about Tom. But Riff has her eyes set only on the lead singer Joe Ramone and hopefully in getting to that concert to get them to play her song.Fun!
The enthusiastic acting is pretty campy, but that goes down well with the material and there's a certain likability stemming from these characters, but we totally despise Ms. Togar and her hall monitor goons.There's no beating around the bush here when I say 'Rock 'n' Roll High School' is an intoxicating hoot, of a rad time!.
ROCK N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL holds a special place in my heart because it introduced me to the Ramones.
(Isn't it every high school kid's dream to trash his school and blow it up, all set to a rockin' soundtrack?) I recorded a subsequent airing of the film a year or two later and kept watching the Ramones concert sequences over and over again, thinking "Man, these guys kick ass!
High school comedies have really changed over the years, if you compare a movie like "American Pie" with this late 70's classic, where no tasteless sex jokes are made at all.
it's a great film with a little bit of bad acting, but great rock 'n' roll music.i give this movie 4 stars1.
A classic US versus THEM teen rager flik in a camped out tradition of Blackboard Jungle that gets the roles right.Consider this gumbo...70s stud Van Patten as hopeless jock, mixed with rock and roll saviours Ramones as geek chorus, Clint Howard (in his funniest role before EdTV) as the risky business young enterpriser, a Rock-Ometer that deftly measures who is the loudest band of em all, exploding white mice, and the cherry on top, PJSoles as protofeministpunkwannabe, complete with her bitchin' record collection and her Horatio Alger drive to be FIRST in line.The movie at the time of its release, often shown in a double bill with the Who's The Kids Are Allright, was a glistening cultural oasis, figuring once you got out of the theatre and into your car your dad had the disco on the radio.Apparently, Corman wanted disco music to be the lifeblood of the teens, until Arkush demanded punk; the TNT scene was really executed on a high school in Watts; and Dee Dee Ramone thought the movie took the band 'down a level to stupid, and the Ramones aren't a stoopid band.'  Hey, we accept you, we accept you, one of US.A must see for any rack'n'roll fan that hates the Dave Mathews Band..
Fashions aside, this basic rock-n-roll, high school rebellion movie holds up nicely today.
Even if you're not a big Ramones fan, Rock 'N' Roll High School is *still* the greatest rock 'n' roll movie ever made.
Mary Woronov as evil principal Miss Togar and Paul Bartel as a wacky music teacher steal the movie and would later make the equally great "Eating Raoul."  This is a great film that I think everyone should see!
Rock and Roll High School was centered around the Ramones.
If you don't like the Ramones then you don't know rock and roll and you don't deserve to watch a movie called ROCK AND ROLL High School..
"Rock 'N' Roll High School" is like, the veritable predecessor for other great films such as "Fast Times at Ridgemont High," and "Singles."  It's right in that same vein...
(Incidentally, I heard that concert went on forever during the filming of the movie to get it "just right."  This is kind of funny because if you know ANYTHING about the Ramones, you know their songs are on average, about sixty seconds long, each.)  It's a classic case-study of the student body rebelling against the administrative dictatorship which is enforced by the principal, other school officials, and especially the hall monitors.
The student body, lead by punkadelic Riff Randall, portrayed by PJ Soles of "Halloween," (and a bunch of other movies I don't remember the names of right this instant), manages to come out on top after having been oppressed musically, and creatively by "the man," Miss Togar.
Roger Corman's New World Pictures released this clever & often hilarious musical comedy starring the punk rock band "The Ramones".
What kind of high school is this anyway?Unless you are a major Ramones fan, DO NOT and I repeat DO NOT waste your time like I did.
It's odd that twenty-three years later, their music sounds so much more mainstream than it did in 1979, but you have to remember that disco ruled the (AM) airwaves and the Ramones' brand of roots-punk rock & roll was a harsh contrast to the dance music that prevailed at the time.Bad points:  the acting, the dialogue, and the plot.
I have been a Ramones fan since high school and somehow had never seen this movie.
And if you like laughing at poorly made movies, you'll get some good laughs out of Rock 'n Roll High School..
the high school is taken over by evil ms.togar that hates the one thing that all the students love, rock& roll.
Still I watched all 100 minutes of it, because it has "ENERGY." Story - parents and high school administration think Rock and Roll will be the downfall of their teenagers.
Rock 'n' Roll High School (1979) ** 1/2 (out of 4)Entertaining, if extremely brain dead film set in a high school where a new principle has started and she refuses to let the kids dance, sing or have fun.
When The Ramones come to town, their #1 fan Riff Randell (P.J. Soles) will do whatever it takes to get tickets and to make sure the school is ready to rock.
PJ Soles stars as Riff Randle, the rebellious high school girl who lives and breathes rock 'n roll.
Clint Howard as the duplicitous Eaglebauer, has lots of fun with his role.The Ramones perform many of their hit songs in this film.
I liked this movie I remember there was one very well done scene in this movie where Riff Randell (played by P.J. Soles) is lying in her bed smoking pot and then she begins to visualize that the Ramones are in the room with her sing the song "I Want You Around" ...very very cool stuff.It was fun, energetic, quirky and cool.
I liked this movie I remember there was one very well done scene in this movie where Riff Randell (played by P.J. Soles) is lying in her bed smoking pot and then she begins to visualize that the Ramones are in the room with her sing the song "I Want You Around" ...very very cool stuff.It was fun, energetic, quirky and cool.
Portraying a bunch of high school students using the Ramones' music as inspiration to rise up against their despotic principal (Mary Woronov, of "Eating Raoul" fame), the whole movie is a mile a minute.
Too bad that director Allan Arkush later degenerated into fare such as "Caddyshack II".Also starring P.J. Soles, Vincent Van Patten, Clint Howard, Dey Young, Dick Miller (who has appeared in every one of Joe Dante's movies, and many of Roger Corman's), Don Steele, and of course the Ramones.
Vincent Van Patten is the only actor I'm familiar with as one of the kids, the pretty boy blonde football player determined to get laid and aiding aging high school rocker P.J. Soles (29 at the time of this film's release) to get rock band the Ramones to perform at the school.Going into my junior year of high school at the time this came out, this is not representative of the two high schools I attended, but I did indeed recognize many of the archetypes of the type of kids I'd been around, even though my own modern music taste at the time isn't reflected here either.
One of b- and c-movie producer Roger Corman's greatest cult classics was the Ramones vehicle (originally designated for Cheap Trick), Rock N' Roll High School.
It's just a simple, technically dated story (but would serve up extra doses of nostalgia humor considering these were the kind of things that made Napoleon Dynamite characters funny--see Eaglebauer's van) about teenagers who love rock n' roll.Students at Vince Lombardi High School are met with resistance by the evil principal, Miss Evelyn Togar (played by cult classic favorite, Mary Woronov) who fears that Rock N' Roll turns kids into uncontrollable, amoral deviants and vows to make a Rock N' Roll-free zone.
A Ramones fanatic, she has written some songs (including Rock N' Roll High School) that she wants to give to the Ramones, and in trying to do so, is rebuffed by Miss Togar who does all she can to keep her from going to see the Ramones play in town.
When ever you have a few buddies over for some beers and you guys want to watch a real hip flick for a good laugh, Rock 'n' Roll High School would be the perfect choice.
I was really amazed with Clint Howard's role as Eagle Bower and I just could not imagine any other rock 'n' roll band to star in this movie then the Ramones.
Look, this was not meant to be cinematic art, it was meant to be a rockin' and rollin' teen movie involving probably one of the most influential rock bands of all time.My personal favorite scene was when the main character, Riff Randall, is in her bedroom and is fantasizing about Joey Ramone singing "I Want You Around" to her.
Foremost among their number is rock and roller Riff Randell (has P.J Soles ever been lovelier?) who dreams of writing songs for the Ramones and meeting Joey Ramone.When new Principal Togar (has Mary Woronov ever not been great in a film?) takes her ticket to the concert away from her, she and her best friend Kate have to figure out how they'll get to meet their heroes, win true love and escape the drudgery of high school.There's a moment here where Riff imagines Joey in her bedroom singing "I Want You Around" to her.
ROCK 'N' ROLL HIGH SCHOOL is a Roger Corman-produced mix of musical and high school comedy, mainly working as a showpiece for The Ramones, a popular punk band of the 1970s.
The school's most popular student Riff Randle (played with nonstop energy and sex appeal by late 70s/early 80s vixen P.J. Soles) is the #1 fan of the iconic 70s band the Ramones, who are in town for a concert.
The movie is just plain fun....maybe more fun for those of us who were kids and fans of "The Ramones" around the time the film was made.