Chicago as seen through the windows of ‘Cooley High’
The movie “Cooley High” was released 35 years ago this week.
Made in 1975, the bittersweet tale of a group of Cabrini Green kids coming-of-age in the mid-1960s was dismissed as a black “American Graffiti” at the time. History has been a lot more kind, however, and the characters of Preach, Cochise, Pooter, Stone & Robert, Brenda–oh, yes, Brenda–and G.C. Cameron’s heartbreaking “It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday” from the movie’s soundtrack are well-established parts of the black pop culture universe. (My only beef with the movie is a minor one: it has a Motown soundtrack when the film cries out for Chicago Soul artists like The Impressions, Barbara Acklin, Billy Butler, the folks at Chess Records and others. But I can get over that.)
“Cooley High” also has a blast with Chicago locales, with Milwaukee-born director Michael Schultz largely skipping the architectural eye-candy of downtown in favor of the street corner grit of the Cabrini-Green area. There’s also a pretty good car chase scene at Navy Pier that shows what that venue looked like before it tourists and nacho wagons landed. The movie’s opening scene–with the protagonists hitching a ride to Lincoln Park Zoo on the back of a GM New Look CTA bus (the “Green Limousine” we called it back in the day)–is priceless. You can also catch a glimpse of the long, low Montgomery Ward complex at Chicago Avenue and the River as the fellas ride.
The EL also plays an important role in the film. The roaring train appears a few times in the movie, and in one supremely inspired scene near the film’s end, the passing train drowns out a character’s anguished screams. Eric Monte’s script provides some laughs, such as this scene in a movie theater–although it looks to me like a school auditorium–in which the Disciples and the Counts street gangs end up fighting each other while “Godzilla vs The Thing” plays:
Chicago did have a Cooley High, which sat on Division and Orleans until it was demolished in the 1980s. The city has changed since then. The Cabrini-Green “Red” buildings that figure so prominently in “Cooley High” are gone now, replaced by mixed-income housing under the Chicago Housing Authority’s Plan for Transformation. Those Series 6000 CTA train cars are now museum pieces. And we all know what happened to Navy Pier.
By the way, actor Corin Rogers–who played Pooter in the film–reminded me that he has a blog on Black Planet in which he discusses the movie, reminisces about the cast, etc. It’s pretty good. Check it out.
blogs.vocalo.org
Can I say right now that I was never crazy about this film. And I’m of the generation who thinks this film is a beloved memory. There was no Jim brown kicking ass or getting all the women and besides high school sucked for me so Cooley High wasn’t exactly happening for me
You are so right with your “beef” about the music.
It was nothing short of a cinematic sin! The Chicago scene had such a richness of musical talent at that time…
The film missed out by not showcasing that richness in lieu of the Motown sound.
For this film especially, what would have been better than the Impressions… whose own Curtis Mayfield had residential roots in Cabrini Green?!?
Wow! I’d never thought about that before…
I haven’t seen Cooley High in years. I’ll watch it again this summer in celebration of its 35th year anniversary… with my box of tissue on hand of course… I ALWAYS cry at the end.
@Sergio: for shame, brother; for shame.
@Tanisha: It’s worth checking out again, of course. And yeah, the ending gets me too. Especially now: The character was buried at Burr Oak cemetery. Or–given what we now know about burials there–was he?
You inspired me to write my own take on the film
http://www.shadowandact.com/?p=25933#comments
“Cooley High” always had a nostalgic feeling for me because the first 12 years of my life – mid-1950s to mid-1960s – were spent in the Town And Garden Apartments. Primarily at the southwest corner of the complex at 420 W. Evergreen, right across the street from Cabrini.
We moved in 1966 when I was 12. But one of the big “adventures” back then was to walk down Sedgwick past the old Oscar Mayer plant with the Wiener Mobile parked out front, and sneak as close to Cooley as possible as classes let out for the day so we could check out the high school girls and perhaps not get chased off by the boys. (Because in our young minds, not being chased away meant that they accepted us!)
Ahhhh…The good old days…..