Cooley High is a 1975 American independent hood coming-of-age comedy-drama film that follows the narrative of two high school seniors and best friends, Leroy "Preach" Jackson (Glynn Turman) and Richard "Cochise" Morris (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs). Written by Eric Monte and directed by Michael Schultz, the film, primarily shot in Chicago, was a major hit at the box office, grossing over $13 million (USD). The light-hearted-turned-tragic storyline was complemented by a soundtrack featuring many Motown hits.
In a 40th-year retrospective by NPR in 2015, Cooley High was called a "classic of black cinema" and "a touchstone for filmmakers like John Singleton and Spike Lee." In 2021, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
Plot
In 1964 Chicago, Leroy "Preach" Jackson and his best friend, Richard "Cochise" Morris, are in the final weeks of their senior year at Cooley Vocational High School in the Near North Side. They sneak out of class one Friday and spend the day at Lincoln Park Zoo with two friends, Pooter and Willie. After catching the L train back to school, the gang goes to Martha's, a soul food hangout, where Preach falls in love with classmate Brenda while shooting craps with neighborhood hoodlums Stone and Robert. Cochise and Preach make a dollar bet on whether Preach can get Brenda into bed, after which Preach gets kicked out by a cleaver-wielding Martha for gambling.
When Cochise gets home from Martha's, he gets a letter from Grambling State University informing him that he has received a basketball scholarship. That night, Cochise, Preach, Pooter, Willie, and another friend, Tyrone, attend a party hosted by Tyrone's girlfriend, Dorothy, at her apartment. Brenda is also in attendance, and she and Preach bond over a mutual interest in poetry during a slow dance. Meanwhile, Cochise gets into a fistfight with hotheaded classmate Damon after he catches him kissing his girlfriend, Loretta, and the fight trashes Dorothy's apartment and ends the party.
The boys go to Martha's, where Stone and Robert pull up in a stolen Cadillac Coupe de Ville and convince Preach and Cochise to get in with them. Stone lets Preach drive, and the four speed through downtown Chicago and get into a high-speed chase with police at a Navy Pier warehouse after Preach runs a red light. They evade the police, but Preach rear ends a parked car, causing the four to flee before the police arrive.
On Saturday, Preach and Cochise go to the movies with their friends, during which a huge fight erupts after Pooter accidentally steps on a man's foot. On Sunday, Preach and Brenda make love after spending a romantic day together. However, Preach reveals the dollar bet he made with Cochise, causing Brenda to leave in anger. On Monday, Preach and Cochise are scheduled to take a history midterm, but they are arrested right before the test for their joyride in the Cadillac. Mr. Mason, the boys' history teacher, persuades one of the detectives, a close friend, to let them go because of their clean records. Stone and Robert, however, remain in jail due to being repeat offenders. After Preach and Cochise are released, Stone and Robert wrongly assume that they snitched on them.
A few days later, Preach discovers that Mr. Mason got him and Cochise out of jail, and he sets off to find Cochise to tell him. He finds Cochise with his ex-girlfriend, Sandra, who Preach cheated on with Brenda. Preach becomes angry and retreats to Martha's, where he sees Brenda and apologizes for what happened between them. However, Damon is there, and Stone and Robert show up after being released from jail. Still believing Preach and Cochise snitched on them, Stone and Robert, along with Damon, chase Preach.
After evading the trio, Preach meets up with Brenda on the L train, where she informs him that Cochise went to Martha's looking for him. Stone, Robert, and Damon find Cochise under the L train tracks and beat him so severely that he dies, then flee. Preach frantically searches for Cochise before discovering his lifeless body.
At Cochise's funeral, Preach watches from afar and goes to the casket for a personal farewell after the mourners have departed. Toasting absent friends, Preach drinks from a wine bottle and recites a poem he wrote for Cochise. After promising Cochise that he and their friends will be fine, Preach runs away from the cemetery feeling confident in his future.
The epilogue reveals that Preach moved to Hollywood after graduation and became a successful screenwriter; Stone and Robert were killed in 1966 during a gas station holdup; Brenda became a librarian in Atlanta, got married, and had three children; Damon joined the Army and became a sergeant stationed in Europe; Pooter became a factory worker in Muncie, Indiana; and Tyrone was killed at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago during an outbreak of racial violence.
Cast
Background
Monte based the film on his experiences attending the real-life Cooley Vocational High School (which closed in 1979) that served students from the Cabrini–Green public housing project on Chicago's north side. While the film was set in and around Cabrini–Green, it was primarily filmed at another Chicago-area housing project. Monte has said that he wrote the film to dispel myths about growing up in the projects: "I grew up in the Cabrini–Green housing project and I had one of the best times of my life, the most fun you can have while inhaling and exhaling".
Production
The movie was filmed from October through November 1974 in Chicago, Illinois. Some scenes include other areas of Chicago such as Navy Pier and the Gold Coast area but primarily in and around the Cabrini-Green housing project on the near-north side. Interior school scenes were shot at Chicago's Providence St. Mel High School.
Soundtrack
The soundtrack of Cooley High, produced and arranged by Freddie Perren, features numerous songs by artists belonging to the Motown record label, as well as instrumental compositions written by Perren. It also features the original song "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday", written by Perren and Christine Yarian and performed by G. C. Cameron for the film.