Cooley High (1975)

It's Chicago, circa 1964, and Preach (Glynn Turman), Cochise (Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs) and their buddies are mischievous teens navigating girls and schools. They play pranks on others, cut classes, hang out at parties, and conduct crap games in the boys' washrooms.

Preach has aspirations of being a writer. He and his friends come from working class and working poor backgrounds. Cooley High, which was an actual high school in Chicago, sits near the infamous Cabrini Green projects where most of the students live. The neighborhood is tough, and it'll take some tenacity to achieve dreams to get out.

The film captures a slice of life, a moment in time when teens were more carefree than they are now. Motown was reviving up, and the soundtrack is heavy with the hits from that era. The best song in the movie however, was "It's So Hard To Say Goodbye To Yesterday" by G.C. Cameron. It is used during a funeral scene to great effect.

Turman, a good actor, went on to appear in many film and TV projects. Hilton-Jacobs later appeared as Freddie "Boom Boom" Washington, one of the Sweathogs on the TV series, "Welcome Back Kotter". Comedian Robert Townsend, who went on to make the film Hollywood Shuffle, is a Chicago native. He had a small role in Cooley High. Garrett Morris, a member of the first cast of TV's "Saturday Night Live", plays a no-nonsense teacher.