Three O'Clock High

When I first saw the trailer for Fist Fight, my immediate reaction was, "Holy Crap, they remade Three O'Clock High!" The only big change seems to be that in the new movie the fight is between two teachers and in this one it's between two students. Other than that, they seem rather similar. So, I figured it might be fun to revisit this one and then check out the new one and compare. 

Jerry Mitchell (Casey Siemaszko) is a well liked guy in school. He manages the school store and writes for the school paper. He is given an assignment to write a welcome article for the school paper on the new student, Buddy Revell (played by Richard Tyson). The initial meeting between Jerry and the hot-tempered Buddy doesn't go well and results in Buddy challenging Jerry to a fight in the parking lot after school. Not wanting to fight, Jerry finds himself scrambling to find a way to get out of it with the help of his girlfriend Franny (played by Annie Ryan), best friend Vincent (played by Jonathan Wise) and little sister Brei (played by Stacey Glick). He tries everything from trying to ditch school early, to getting detention to getting another, bigger student to beat up Buddy as the hours tick down and to the increasingly inevitable fight. 

The film was directed by Phil Joanou from a script by Richard Christian Matheson and Tom Szolossi. The film's title was meant as a reference to the classic western High Noon, which similarly focuses on a lone hero having to face down an intimidating opponent. Barry Sonnenfeld, who would go onto a solid directing career himself, was the cinematographer and gives the film a certain hyper real quality at times, making this film a little more unique in the realm of eighties teen films. The film is a solid and lean film with strong pacing, which is important to a comedy film like this. The film also does a good job developing Buddy not only as a formidable foe for Jerry, but also as a character. The film also does a good job developing Jerry as a sympathetic character who has always done the right thing but over the course of the day does some pretty bad things to try and get out of the fight. 

The performances in the film are strong as well. Casey Siemaszko carries the bulk of the film as Jerry and does a good job portraying his character's increasing desperation, especially in the scene in his English class where he gives perhaps the most outrageous book report ever in a desperate attempt to get detention that winds up backfiring in an unexpected way. Annie Ryan is great as Jerry's spiritual and flighty girlfriend that claims she speaks to a spirit guide named Ethan. I appreciated that Jerry's younger sister was more than the typical bratty younger sister, trying to help and encourage Jerry as much as she could.  

Three O'Clock High has probably faded into obscurity a bit over time as it has become a bit of a cult film over the years. It's one I remember seeing on cable and liking quite a bit as a young teen myself. Even though the movie does stretch reality a bit for the sake of comedy, there were several fights throughout my four years of high school and they always did drive large crowds, although they were in the halls between classes and never drew the entire school like some sort of adolescent cage match. But, still it's a movie and I will allow certain things like that for comedic effect. But overall the film was strong enough for me to remember it fondly all these years later and want to revisit it simply from the prompting of a new and very similar movie trailer. So, I think that says something.