Trailer
Plot summary
Chicago, 1964. Leroy "Preach" Jackson and Richard "Cochise" Morris are best friends in their last weeks at Cooley High School. They skip class one Friday with Pooter and Willie and spend the day at the Lincoln Park Zoo, then head to Martha's, a soul food restaurant where Preach meets Brenda while shooting craps with Stone and Robert. Martha drives him out for gambling, and Cochise wagers a dollar that Preach cannot get Brenda into bed. A letter then tells Cochise that Grambling State University is offering him a basketball scholarship. At a party thrown by Tyrone's girlfriend Dorothy, Preach and Brenda find common ground in poetry, and Cochise brawls with classmate Damon.
Cast
- Cynthia Davisas Brenda
- Corin Rogersas Pooter
- Joseph Carter Wilsonas Tyrone
- Sherman Smithas Stone
- Norman Gibsonas Robert
- Maurice Marshallas Damon
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Cooley High (1975)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Producers hunting for realistic gang members, tipped off by police, offered Rick Stone and Norman Gibson roles in the film while the pair were playing basketball; Stone played Stone and Gibson played Robert.
SPOILER
Screenwriter Eric Monte said Cochise's death in the film was inspired by a childhood friend killed in a similar way, and that after the murder he hitchhiked to the west coast and wrote for Good Times and The Jeffersons.- ABC's planned TV adaptation of Cooley High flopped as a pilot, so network head Fred Silverman had TOY Productions redo it as a sitcom with new characters and a new title, creating What's Happening!!, which ran from 1976 to 1979.
- Boyz II Men named their debut album Cooleyhighharmony and recorded "It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday" from the film's soundtrack; the 1991 film Boyz n the Hood was influenced by Cooley High.
- Writer Eric Monte based the film on his own time at the real Cooley Vocational High School, which served Chicago's Cabrini-Green housing project and closed in 1979.
- The film is set in and around Chicago's Cabrini-Green housing project but was primarily shot at a different Chicago-area housing project.
