Junior High School (1978)

The story begins with Sherry (Paula Abdul) declaring plans to hold a party that night. Upon hearing about this party, Jerry's friend Paul (Kirk Burnett) encourages him to ask his crush Lori... See full summary »

Directors:

Michael Nankin, David Wechter

Writers:

Steve Jacobson, Briana London (as Helyn Spears)

Stars:

P. David Ebersole, Karen Capelle, Kirk Burnett

1 win.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
P. David Ebersole	...	Jerry (as David Stewart)
Karen Capelle	...	Lori
Kirk Burnett	...	Paul
Mikal Robert Taylor	...	Keith
Toni Mazarin	...	Vicki
Paula Abdul	...	Sherry
Haya Kohn	...	Vicki's Friend
Matt Caplan	...	Bill
Jim Norris	...	Bob
Kevin Kucera	...	Office Runner
Candy Breen	...	Julie
Ira Kaplan	...	Friedman
Cissy Wechter	...	Girl in Library
Bart Tallakson	...	Huge Mean Kid
Melinda Lilly	...	Girl #1

Storyline

The story begins with Sherry (Paula Abdul) declaring plans to hold a party that night. Upon hearing about this party, Jerry's friend Paul (Kirk Burnett) encourages him to ask his crush Lori Scott (Karen Capelle) to accompany him to the event. On his way to doing this Jerry encounters several obstacles, including repeated run-ins with Keith (Mikal Robert Taylor), a school bully, and Vicki (Toni Mazarin), an ill-intentioned girl who hopes Jerry will ask her to the party so she can spite a previous boyfriend. (from Wikipedia every of same name)

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Plot Keywords:

tube sock | schoolteacher | love | male female relationship | teenage girl | 

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Genres:

Short | Comedy | Drama | Musical | Romance

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Did You Know?

Trivia

Husband and wife comedy team Charlie Brill and Mitzi McCall appeared in the film using disguises and pseudonyms, due to its low budget and their membership in SAG.

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Connections

Featured in At the Movies: Dances with Wolves/Graffiti Bridge/The Kray's/The Rescuers Down Under (1990)

User Reviews

Not that bad for a senior project!

I first saw Junior High School in 1978 as an entry in the Movies on a Shoestring Festival held in Rochester N.Y. (now called the Rochester International Film Festival). It was a cut above the usual MOS fare and was well received by the judges and festival attendees. The principals, writers and directors, were a group of USC cinema majors that made the movie as their senior project and to demonstrate their abilities to potential Hollywood employers. If you check their other credits, you will see that they collaborated on a prior short called Gravity. The principals attended the screening and each was given a trophy. Several years before this film was submitted, Movies on a Shoestring began purchasing copies of the most popular films screened during the festival for a lending library called "Best of the Fest". A copy of Junior High School was purchased and it went on to be one of the most popular in their catalog.

While many people today classify this as a really bad movie that you have to watch, at the time JHS was considered good work, especially for a group of film students with a relatively untrained non-union cast (save for Mitzi McCall & hubby Charlie Brill who appeared in disguise and were originally credited under aliases) and crew making little or no money. Yes, the story line is schmaltzy and the performances shallow but the production work was close to professional, all things considered.

Unlike the storyline and the acting, the music was quite good. I assume this is due in large part to the lineage of David Wechter whose father Julius was a well respected studio and touring musician (Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass and the Baja Marimba Band) as well as a composer/arranger/film scorer. I suspect that dad made a few uncredited contributions to the movie... Audio recording and post production capabilities for big budget movies were crude by today's standards; on a low budget production like this the music had to stand on its own.

The direction, camera work and editing occurred before music videos took film making on a downward spiral of fast cuts and often indiscernible imagery. By today's often unpalatable standards of film production, JHS may be dated but it was very well done for the pre-MTV era. Junior High School achieved its objectives: the principals graduated from USC with cinema degrees and three out of four quickly found jobs in Hollywood where they continue to work today. Jacobson appears to have skipped the Hollywood film business as there are no subsequent credits for him.

BTW, I would have enjoyed being a fly on the wall listening to a bunch of twenty something students trying to convince the the school principal to hand over his building to them for several days of shooting without a big fat compensation check. It would be interesting to get one or more of the principals to open up about the making of Junior High School.

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

October 1978 (USA)

Filming Locations:

John Muir Junior High School - 1111 North Kenneth Road, Burbank, California, USA

Company Credits

Technical Specs

Runtime:

37 min

Color:

Color