I was fortunate to snag an original 16mm reduction print of High School Hero, for many reasons. First off I wanted to see Freddie Slack and His Orchestra, having grown up playing the Will Bradley boogie woogie 78rpm records that featured Slack an piano. And this was one of their best jams! "Southpaw Serenade" which Slack released on a Capitol 78rpm record. It was a great scene in this "B" movie flick that was allegedly the first time the idea of a "teenager" was introduced to
the movie going public. That's another topic that's worth your time to research. This flick is a high school football / musical farce that's a lot of fun! I love these 1940's "B" movies as they are called. For one thing, Jan Savitt and His Orchestra also gets to jam! His singer is beautiful Andalusian Lita Baron known as "Isabelita" who also sang with the Xavier Cugat outfit. As a bonus (and if you are
a Three Stooges fan, and what normal human being isn't) Joe DeRita who played Curly Joe and who was the last of the Stooges is also in this flick! One of the teens in the picture is played by Freddie Stewart who was a damn good tenor, there is a scene with him and actor Warren Mills, who need to see Jan Savitt, as the try and sneak by the watchman, (an old Irishman) who is bias to anybody Irish, and is conned into believing that Freddie is a famous Irish tenor. To prove it, he breaks out into song "Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms". Bringing the old watchman to tears and letting them go through. I kind of got a little teary-eyed and hell I'm not even Irish! Today critics would say that the actors were all in their 20's and not high school age kids at all. However, if you look at old 1940's high school yearbooks, the young people look older and more mature than the idiots from the 1970's on! Young people wanted to grow up and become adults back in the 1940's. Now adults are are still adolescents and never grow up! Times were better then! The best thing about these flicks, they are all under 90 minutes which is good! There are no cell phones, computers, television sets, screaming idiots using the "F" word every other minute. No Covid-19 masks, no Trump's, no Biden's! No Tattooed morons with colored hair and rap music blasting from their car! No sex scenes, no stupidity! Just good old clean 1940's American fun! It's a blast in black and white! It's when movies were the best entertainment! Love the 1940's chicks with the nice legs, and beautiful long hair. It's like fairy-gifts, fading away! See it on a motion picture film print if you can! Who knows what happened to the 35mm nitrate negative? It's most likely in the landfill. Sad!
