Throwback Thursday: "Three 'o' Clock High"

High school in the '80s was a cruel time of ill-advised fashion and what would today be social hara-kiri in the form of yellow sweater vest, bright aqua turtlenecks, and hair teased so high that it could tangle in low-hanging branches.

Three 'o' Clock High is in many ways a very typical '80s movie: the main guy is dorky, but not too dorky, not like his friends; he has a brunette falling all over him, but he wants the blonde; and all matters high school are overblown to a global scale, as if the film's outcome holds the same weight as a war or a presidential election.

In many ways, though, High is anything but typical. From the very beginning, the camera work is extremely elaborate - shooting and editing must have been a bear. Sometimes this gives the impression of being overdone, but most times (particularly in the beginning montage) it adds solid appeal to a film that doesn't have much originality in the story or setting department.

The acting, with plenty of recognizable faces, is pretty good. While the story is predicated on an agreed-upon sense of drama quite typical of high school, everyone's on the same level, so there are no outliers to run against the film's grain.

The whole thing is supposed to be funny, I'm pretty sure, but it's not so much funny as it is comfortably entertaining. It would have been better with a few really solid laughs like how John Hughes would pepper his high school drama flicks, but High doesn't need the comedy to move it along, really.

So, though the story has been done before and since, give it a viewing for camera work and editing alone, both of which are excellent. In this way, High is a fine, under-the-radar addition to the Hughes-esque '80s canon.