Shirley Temple may have been queen of the child actresses in the late 1930s, but Jane Withers starred in more pictures at 20th Century-Fox in the period and may have been more profitable for the company -- B pictures cost a lot less to make. When she made HIGH SCHOOL, she had reached the ripe old age of 14, and so there were some uneasy signs of romance in the air.
Jane has been raised on her father's ranch and, despite his hiring tutors to teach her to be a lady, she isn't interested, so he ships her off to San Antonio, where his brother, Lloyd Corrigan, is the principal of the Thomas Jefferson High School in San Antonio. Jane alienates everyone with her brashness and independence, except for Joe Brown Jr. He's rather taken with the forthright young woman. However, when she unwittingly gets him thrown off the football team, she gets snubbed.... until a subplot about a stolen car ring raises its head.
Miss Temple may have held patents on cuteness and pouting, but Miss Withers'' brashness and occasional deviltry has its own fans -- including me! -- and charms, and Fox' B production was probably the strongest in Hollywood in this period. It's a solid, pleasing effort.
While preparing this review, I checked the reviews of this movie on the IMDb. They were all written by San Antonians (I hope I have used the correct term), and were anxious to correct errors about San Antonio in the era. None of them pointed out that the character played by Maurice Cass is touted as a direct descendant of Thomas Jefferson, named Franklin Jefferson; yet none of Jefferson's legitimate sons survived to have children of their own. I suppose that when assessing a work of fiction, we each have different standards of what errors are important.
