Three O' Clock High (1987)

In its initial release Three O’ Clock High was a box office bomb.  It was panned heavily by the critics and had the misfortune of being lost in the shuffle – the movie market was heavily saturated with teen movies at this time. It was a good year for movies like Can’t Buy Me Love and Dirty Dancing, but Three O’ Clock slipped through the masses completely unnoticed.  It’s also hard to fault the movie critics for their hostile reviews – on the surface Three O’ Clock High is your standard 80s teen comedy. It shares the same tropes of most teen comedies:  the socially awkward protagonist; the uncompromising bully; the “cute” female best friend; the popular girl who the protagonist obsesses over; and a “believe in yourself” message.  Yet, on closer inspection Three O’ Clock High is a more interesting movie than most critics gave it credit it for. 

The plot is fairly straightforward – Jerry Mitchell, our protagonist, is given the assignment of interviewing the new kid, Buddy Revell. The catch is that Buddy has pretty violent history (he has been expelled from other schools for assaulting students and teachers, alike). It is heavily emphasized that Buddy does not liked to be touched and anyone who violates his personal space usually ends up in a body cast.  Jerry violates this rule when he gives Buddy a friendly pat on the shoulder and this enrages Buddy so much that he challenges Jerry to a fight after school (three o’ clock high).

Jerry Mitchell is your typical teen movie protagonist. Casey Siemaszko often comes across as a low rent John Cusack or Michael J. Fox. He is a decent actor but he lacks the charisma of those two actors. In fact, one could easily imagine John Cusack in the role of Jerry Mitchell; the character is fairly similar to the roles he played in Better Off Dead and The Sure Thing.

 Ironically, Siemaszko’s lack of charisma actually works in the movie’s favor, because it only further emphasizes just how unremarkable Jerry Mitchell is.  He is pretty much ignored by his fellow classmates and doesn’t really want to make any waves – he is perfectly fine with coasting his way through his high school (like most students).  The only interaction he gets with his fellow classmates is when he is working at the school store.  He acts like a complete buffoon whenever he is the same room as his high school crush, Karen.  When she wants to buy paper and pen, he gives her a whole range of options, and simply won’t shut up and let her decide.  He then short changes her and struggles to open the register to give the correct change until she finally tells him not worry about it. It is a perfectly embarrassing moment!  It also something I can relate to, as I had plenty of embarrassing moments in front of my school crushes.   Jerry completely violates the guy code when he attempts to engage in conversation with Buddy while pissing in the urinal. This is a complete NO NO; especially in the 1980s.  Jerry attempts to smooth over this faux pas but makes matters worse when he gives Buddy a pat on the shoulder. OOPS!!!  Not only does he violate Buddy’s personal space, but he does it before washing his hands.  GROSS!!!

If Cusack would have played Jerry, we would have immediately been in his corner – he would have won us over with a few witty quips and self deprecating humor, but with Siemazko in the lead role we merely empathize with Jerry.  In fact, Three O’ Clock High is probably the rare teen movie where the lead character is slightly unlikable; this is in large part due the extreme measures he takes to weasel out of the fight with Buddy.  He tries to reason with Buddy, but his pleas fall on dear ears. He tries to sneak off the campus, but is caught by school security.  Finally, out of desperate, he embezzles four hundred dollars from the school store to pay a football player to fight Buddy for him. This, predictably, fails and he is back to square one; not to mention this leads to him being investigated by the police. He, apart from Mr. Rice, is the only who has keys to the school store, so he is the only real suspect they have. At the advice of his sister, he tries to weasel out of the fight by getting after school detention – he figures the best way to go about this is by making a pass at his attractive English teacher, Miss Farmer.  He gives a sexually suggestive book report and then kisses her on the lips. The ecstasy of the moment causes him to faint and he wakes up in the nurses’ office.  When he asks to the nurse where he is to report for detention, she tells him there isn’t any and that Miss Farmer really enjoyed his book report (this is something movies couldn’t get away with in modern times). 

Finally, Jerry bribes Buddy (with the money refunded by the football player) to call off the fight.  Buddy accepts but can only express nothing but disgust for Jerry’s cowardice (“you are the biggest pussy I ever met”).  Jerry, ashamed of his cowardice, decides to make a stand and calls the fight back on.

Jerry’s problems are further exasperated by his friend, Vincent.  It is Vincent who gives him the assignment of interviewing Buddy. It is also is Vincent that comes up with the bright idea of planting a switchblade in Buddy’s locker and writing an anonymous letter to the principal tipping of Buddy’s possession of the knife.  Jerry knows the will enrage Buddy even more, so he pleads with Vincent to get the switchblade out of the locker, but the school bell rings before he is able to remember combination to Buddy’s locker. He, however, is successful in retrieving the letter from the principal’s office. This completely backfires against Jerry – when he attempts to sneak off the school campus, he finds the switchblade lodge in his car’s steering wheel.  When the campus security catches him, Jerry has the switchblade in his possession.  Jerry tries to explain the whole thing to dean of discipline, Voytek Dolinski, however, because Vincent had successfully retrieve the anonymous letter, Jerry has no evidence to back his case.  While most of Jerry’s miseries are of his own making; a lot of his troubles could have been avoided had Vincent minded his own business. Vincent knows all about Buddy’s troubled history, yet he still assigns his best friend to interview the troubled individual. Granted, Jerry should have flat out refused to do the interview, but he also doesn’t want to let the paper down.  With friends like Vincent, who needs enemies?

Buddy Revell, as played by Richard Tyson, is a fairly interesting screen bully. He looks like Jim Morrison on steroids.  Buddy is not a bully in the classic sense – he doesn’t go out of his way to pick on random people. He just wants to be left alone.  The only reason he targets Jerry is because Jerry violated his personal space.  If the incident in the bathroom never occurred, Jerry probably wouldn’t be a blip on Buddy’s radar. While his behavior could be described as “boorish,” Buddy is no dummy. When Jerry tries to ingratiate himself to Buddy by letting Buddy copy off of his algebra test, the two of them are caught by teacher and sent to the principal’s office Jerry, in a desperate attempt to win over Buddy, claims he was the one cheating. The principal says he will accept Jerry’s story, if Buddy can solve two algebra equations by himself.  Buddy passes the test with flying colors and Jerry realizes Buddy didn’t need to cheat off of him – he was being presumptuous.  Buddy is not an overly aggressive person, but lives by a strict code – if you violate his personal space he will break your face.

Three O’ Clock High often feels like the story of David and Goliath adapted as a teen comedy.  In real life, Richard Tyson is only about four inches taller than Casey Siemaszko, yet, through the use of camera angles and forced perspective, Buddy completely towers over Jerry. This is a fight that Jerry has no chance in hell of winning. The filmmakers are aware of this fact and rather than having the scrawny Jerry put a beating on Buddy, instead they make it a team effort .  Just when it looks like Buddy is going to deliver the decisive blow (with his brass knuckles) to Jerry; Vincent jumps on Buddy and gives Jerry enough time to catch his breath.  This also gives Jerry’s sister, Brei, enough time to notice Buddy’s brass knuckles lying on the ground, so she picks them up and tosses them to Jerry.  Jerry is able to evade Buddy’s punch and then is able to deliver the knock out blow.  The final showdown between Buddy and Jerry is well done – it’s fairly exciting without looking overly choreographed. In fact, the nice thing about this scene is the attention to detail; you can actually see the physical toll that this fight takes on both of the participants – they are constantly out of breath and sweating. Early in the fight, Jerry lands punch of Buddy’s nose, which starts to bleed.  Their punches often fail to connect (just like in real life) and there is a sense that had Buddy not being overly aggressive at the end of the fight, he probably would have won despite Jerry having the brass knuckles. 

There’s a feeling of dread throughout the movie, as if the universe simply won't allow Jerry to escape his fate.  Practically everywhere he looks he is reminded of the upcoming fight with Buddy: in his science class, the teacher is showing a sixteen millimeter movie of a scorpion eating a grasshopper; in another class, the teacher describes in great detail Achilles’ murder of Hector in The Iliad; and, while at pep rally, cheerleaders are beating up an effigy of an opposing football player and the head flies off and lands right next to Jerry.  It’s also quite a coincidence that Buddy walks into the restroom the same time Jerry is there; especially after Jerry was just given the assignment to interview Buddy.  The clock is a prominent character in the movie – every few minutes the movie will cut to a close up of a clock to remind us that Jerry’s time is running out.

Phil Joanou is probably best known for the music videos he directed for U2, Three O’ Clock High was one of just a handful of feature movies he directed.  His directing style is fairly reminiscent of filmmakers like Martin Scorsese and Stanley Kubrick, it’s very moody at times and often gives us a detached view of humanity.  There a few clever ideas scattered through out the movie. Our introduction to Buddy occurs off camera, via gossip, his reputation has already preceded him.  We first see a cheerleader talking about Buddy to her friends until he dialogue overlaps with two other teens having the same conversation and the camera follows them. This movement gets repeated multiple times until it leads us Jerry and Brei standing inside the school store.  This is not only clever way of doling out exposition, but it also gives an insight into the student body and just how quickly gossip spreads through the school.  When Buddy challenges Jerry to a fight, another student just happens to be in one of the bathroom stalls and overhears the entire exchange.  He runs out and tells his friends, and it’s only a matter of minutes before entire student body hears about it.  Just like in real life, there are people who want to profit off of Jerry’s misery - two wannabe filmmakers ask Jerry if they can make a documentary about his final hours.  It is revealed that there is a betting pool based on how long Jerry can last against Buddy – one of Jerry’s classmates expresses confidence that he can last three minutes against Buddy. 

After Jerry has managed the impossible by beating Buddy, he becomes a folk hero to the student body.
When it looks like he’s going to jail for embezzling money from the school store register, the students come to his rescue by buying a sheet of school paper for one dollar each.  Buddy even stops to return the bribe money, the ultimate show of respect.  It’s a nice moment for Buddy – he raises his fist and we believe he’s going to punch Jerry; instead he plops the money down on the countertop and gives Jerry a brief smile.  It also indicates how much Jerry has changed, while the rest of the student body gasps when Buddy raises fist, Jerry doesn’t bat an eye. The old Jerry probably would have ducked for cover, but the new Jerry is no longer intimidated by such theatrics. 

Credits
Cast:  Casey Siemaszko (Jerry Mitchell), Richard Tyson (Buddy Revell), Annie Ryan (Franny), Stacey Glick  (Brei Mitchell), Jonathan Wise (Vincent Costello), Jeffrey Tambor (Mr. Rice), Philip Baker Hall (Detective Mulvahill), Mitch Pileggi (Duke Herman), John P. Ryan (Mr. O’ Rourke), Charles Macaulay (Voytek Dolinski), Caitlin O’Heaney (Miss Farmer), Liza Morrow (Karen Clarke), Mike Jolly (Craig Mattey), Yeardley Smith (Cheerleader).

Director: Phil Joanou
Writers: Richard Christian Matheson, Tom Szollosi
Running Time: 90 min.