The funniest, daddio!
What campy fun. It tried to have a serious message (and I guess for the time it came out it did), but it turned out to be just great. The scene where the student gets up and (raps?) it the best part of the movie. "You can spit blood on the moon, soon" is all you need to know. Uncle Fester was great as the mysterious Mister 'A'. Added feature was Mamie Van Doren parading around in tight sweaters and showing her stuff. She was a riot and beautiful!

Funnier than REEFER MADNESS!
Twenty years ago, "pothead" baby boomers flocked to midnight showings of the '30's cult movie Reefer Madness, and laughed till their sides hurt at the unintentionally riotous warnings issued therein about the dangers of becoming, well, a "pothead." It's hard to believe that there could be a better Bad Movie on the same subject, but the 1958 High School Confidential! is even funnier.

"I'm looking to graze on grass," Russ Tamblyn tells another student on his first day at a new school. She reminds him, "this is your seventh year in high school." That almost explains why Tamblyn looks too old for this role, but nothing could possibly explain the next scene: Wandering into homeroom, Tamblyn finds teacher Jan Sterling writing on the blackboard, "Derivation of slang words: chicken, doll, square, scram," prompting Tamblyn to let fly a wolf whistle, then leer at Sterling, "Why don't we cut out, go to your pad and live it up? You can call me Daddy-o." Instead, Sterling must attend a staff meeting where a Fed explains, "In the language the addicts use, marijuana is referred to as Mary Jane, pot, weed or tea," then warns, "it can happen here." It does, at a hep-cat coffeehouse where Tamblyn anxiously tried to score "some H, some coke and some goofballs" while a "doll" recites this poem: "We cough blood on this earth/Now there's a race for space/We can cough blood on the moon, soon/Tomorrow is dragsville, cats/Tomorrow is a king-sized drag."

At home, Tamblyn must fend off the advances of his amorous aunt, Mamie Van Doren, who vamps him by rolling around on his bed and takes a big, meaningful bite out of his apple. The movie goes loco when Sterling, concerned about Tamblyn, comes to call--an opportunity for Van Doren to strut her stuff and snarl, "I don't believe all that stuff the papers say about 'wild reefer parties' and 'fates worse than death in the bushes at night.' Don't tell me you never rode a hot rod, or had a late date in the second balcony!" Tamblyn, meanwhile, is off meeting the local drug lord, Jackie Coogan, who runs a jukebox empire (the evils of rock'n'roll and drug abuse being one and the same). Coogan sneers, of a high-school cutie writhing on his sofa, "I tried to tell that chick that no head ever becomes a lady." Tamblyn pleads, "I'm looking for junk!"--as if this movie were anything but.

Though there's lots more--Jerry Lee Lewis drives by, belting out a tune; the "bad" kids do drugs and (how shocking!) laze around a pool; Sterling helps teen Diane Jergens break the habit by, yes, snapping a joint in two (oh is that how it's done?)--it all ends happily, for, thankfully, Tamblyn's really an undercover FBI agent who busts Coogan. Best of all, at the film's close, a narrator tells us, "You have just seen an authentic disclosure of conditions which unfortunately exist in some of our high schools today.... The job of policemen will not be finished until this insidious menace to the schools of our country is exposed and destroyed." Go buy this movie, right now.

More of a Juvenile Delinquent film than a Rock and Roll Film
High School Confidential has misleading advertisements. When I saw the film, I thought it was going to be a semi-rock and roll film co-starring Jerry Lee Lewis (his name is actually in the credits). However, he only comes out during the opening credits singing one song.

The story is actually more in line with the 1950s juvenile delinquent films than the rock and roll films. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing because the film actually has a better plot than most rock and roll films. It just appears to be advertised as a rock and roll film.

That said, the film has a great storyline, but is overshadowed by beatnik talk and mentality (are beatniks really tough while reciting poetry?). It's great nonetheless.

A Wonderful Movie
This is a very good movie. In fact, it is extremely well done all around. The acting was very effective and convincing. Russ Tamblyn is excellent. I particularly liked the cinematography. Also, the script worked on many levels making it appealing to a wide audience. I found this film to be both entertaining and thought provoking.

"You're draggin' your rear axle in waltz time"

I LOVE High School Confidential. I find it to be campy, yet very well made. I think the acting is good, the action scenes are exciting and I was genuinely surprised by the plot twist. And the dialog, dripping with 1950's hep-talk, is the most daddio!

Unfortunately this dvd is very bare bones, without even the theatrical trailer which was included on the laserdisc edition. But on the plus side it's in widescreen (as a previous reviewer noted, the box incorrectly indicates that it's full screen.)

When I think of Russ Tamblyn, I don't think of West Side Story, I think of High School Confidential. (I also think of Dracula vs. Frankenstein, but that's another story.)