cult film freak: ROGER CORMAN/THE RAMONES PRESENT 'ROCK N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL'

Marla Rosenfield with PJ Soles and Chris Somma in Rock N Roll High School Year: 1979 Rates: ****

Hard Rock Bands like Cheap Trick and Van Halen were originally considered as the muse for the Roger Corman production ROCK N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL, directed by former Fillmore lightshow operator Allan Arkush...

And had the scene where a stoned PJ Soles as hyperactive/always-optimistic mega-fan Riff Randall... imagining punk-pioneers The Ramones in her album-adorned bedroom... instead involved randy crooners Robin Zander or David Lee Roth, it would probably be an instant sex scene or all-out attack...

From ROCK 'N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL

But Joey Ramone was naturally shy and vulnerable in front the camera, perfectly suited to be adored by his biggest fan without seeming a threat and yet, the bands' in-person introduction, singing I Just Want To Have Something To Do while driving to the central Mayan Theater, takes place after 40 minutes, like any Kong-Mark: when the monster enters their own movie that spent the entire build-up anticipating their inevitable arrival...

But other than being Ramones propaganda, ROCK N ROCK HIGH SCHOOL has its own involving student stories: like jock-nerd Vincent Van Patten wanting to score with Soles' extremely confident Randall...

PJ Soles in ROCK 'N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL

Instead being paired by professional bathroom-office cupid Clint Howard (if Fonzie were a used car salesman) to Randall's shy, spectacle-wearing yet gorgeous sidekick Dey Young as science-phenom Kate Rambeau, whose art of bubbling beakers would carry over to the blowing-up-the-campus finale...

Which happens after what's a gritty Ramones mini-concert, with three or four complete tracks, edited perfectly into the teenager-in-peril stories antagonized by two great cinematic foes...

PJ Soles in ROCK 'N ROLL HIGH SCHOOL

Like snarky/sneaky groupie Lynn Farrell backstage, and at school is the central villain about as formidably over-the-top-evil as the dean in the previous years' smash ANIMAL HOUSE, where Corman-regular Mary Woronov's Fascist principal Miss Togar (with two hilarious hall-monitor minions) is dead-set at stopping PJ Soles' ambition to exist outside her rule-saturated campus...

In what's a creatively-shot hangout-stoner flick/concert-film/teenage-musical/comedy-satire hybrid with a band that just about everyone likes, combining power-chord punk with aggressive metal and catchy pop, perfectly suited in a 1970's tour-de-force vehicle as equally addictive and entertaining as the music that drives it.