Top Ten Tuesday: High School Principals

With Diablo Cody’s new high school horror film JENNIFER’S BODY tearing it’s way onto screens this Friday and school itself getting back into session, it’s the perfect opportunity to honor that age old character staple of high school movies, the one that everyone loves to hate, the bane of teenage existence… the high school principle! (Make believe, of course, no offense to any high school principles who may be reading this… or, not!) We’ve decided to take a look back on all the great movies about high school and compile a list of our most favorite of the less-than-favorable members of the cinematic school staff.

10. Mr. Strickland (James Tolkan in BACK TO THE FUTURE)

Mr. Stricktland hates the McFly’s. He has made it known that the one thing that he hates most in the world are slackers. Principal of Hill Valley High School, he has made it his lifes mission to keep order and make likfe hell for anyone that he deemed to be a slacker. His biggest problem with Marty is that he is friends with Doc Brown, who is also on his list of hatred. James Tolkan appears again on this list as McVicker from Beavis and Butt-Head, since he plays the jerk authority figure so well! His biggest influence is his ancestor Chief James Marshall Stricktland of Hill Valley who was brave enough to take on the terrorizing outlaw Buford “Mad Dog” Tanner, as seen in Back to the Future III. Tolkan plays some form of a Stricktland in all three Back to the Future films. Either way, you can’t win against a hoverboard and a Delorian with a flux capacitor!

9. Principal McVicker (Mike Judge in BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD DO AMERICA)

In the 90’s, there was one ruler at Highland High, and that was Principle McVicker (aka: McVicker, Mr. McVicker, and according to Butt-Head, McDicker). McVicker (voiced by James Tolkan) was Butt-Heads arch nemesis, also disliking Beavis for their random shenanigans and metal idiocracy. Many of the episodes take place at some point in his office, because of some sort of trouble that the boys got into by trying to out rock each other. They often left McVicker so upset that he would shake, tremble, stutter and scream, only to follow his fits of rage with pills and alcohol. It was their goal to make McVickers life hell. Over time, they slowly start to ruin his life, and eventually driving him completely insane. In one episode, they even showcase how McVicker once had hair, but the boys shaved it off. I’m guessing because of stress it was never to return. They eventually kill McVicker   (or at least ellude to it) in Beavis and Butthead are Dead, causing him to have a heart attack. Poor guy, he never stood a chance!

8. Principal Claude Rolle (Ernie Hudson in THE SUBSTITUTE)

Principal Claude Rolle is your typical high school prinipal. an ex- cop turned principal, he likes power and discipline, and hates change. When an influential teacher comes into his school with idealistic views, Rolle eventually fires him so that he does not rock the boat and anger potential voters since he is running for City Council. Rolle runs into some trouble with not following the two weeks notice rule with the union, and that’s when problems really seem to escalate. Ernie Hudson goes from busting ghosts to busting heads on his way to power in this film. I have to admit, I wouldn’t be too thrilled to rule a high school where the students throw beer cans in defiance!

7. Principal Nathan Gardner (Robert Downey Jr. in CHARLIE BARTLETT)

Robert Downey Jr. plays Principal Nathan Gardner, the high school principal of a public high school where the smart mouthed, rich kid Charlie Bartlett is forced to attend after being kicked out of private school. When Bartlett is not able to fit in at his new school, he befriends the school bully and they start selling prescription drugs in the boys bathroom, along with some therapy and a listening ear. Gardner is not too pleased, and becomes enraged when Bartlett starts dating his daughter. An alcoholic with a smart mouth, Gardner is said to have changed and become completely miserable once he stopped teaching and began his administrative leadership role. Even Gardners daughter has become rebellious over her fathers lack of concern mixed with alcohol and power. Soon, Bartlett and Gardner are at war, and it is not a pretty one!

6. Principal Valerie Drake (Bebe Neuwirth in THE FACULTY)

Ah, Bebe Neuwirth… how far she came from being Frasier’s ice-cold, heartless wife Dr. Lillith Sternin-Crane in CHEERS to being, well… the ice-cold, heartless high school principal Valerie Drake, possessed by a parasitic alien being. OK, so she hasn’t changed all that much, but that’s why she was so great! Honestly, she was kind of a hot principal, in a creepy sort of way, especially AFTER her body was invaded by aliens. Is it wrong to be thinking these things? Anyway, despite not having a huge role in THE FACULTY, she did have a larger role than most principals in the movies tend to have, One thing was for sure, this was NOT a principal whose office you wanted to be sent to for misbehaving!

5. Arthur Himbry (Henry Winkler in SCREAM)

Who wouldn’t want Arthur Fonzarelli as the principal of their high school.   He wears a leather jacket.   He rides a motorcycle.   He’s cool, cool like the Fonz, because, hey, he IS the Fonz.   Of course, Henry Winkler’s cool-factor dropped a couple of bars between “Happy Days” and his turn as Principal Himbry in SCREAM.   That doesn’t stop us from taking note of his appearance in the Wes Craven film, particularly when he threatens to cut a couple of students with a pair of scissors.   Corporal punishment has stiffened from the days of the paddle.   Principal Himbry tries to keep order in his school, but too many evenings hanging out in his office trying to scare himself in the mirror catch up with him.   He jumps the shark and ends up gutted and hung from a football post, something Craven decides NOT to show us in the finished film.   That still doesn’t keep him from being one of the most memorable high school movie principals on record, even if he’s not as cool as the Fonz.

4. Rick Latimer (James Belushi in THE PRINCIPAL)

“Lighten up! Have some courage. Brave it through a little bit. Knives only hurt if they go through you. Urine only smells if you don’t clean it up.” Principal Rick Latimer addressing the teachers at Brandel High.

Somewhere else on this list sits Henry Winkler as Principal Arthur Himbry in Wes Craven’s SCREAM.   Winkler doesn’t wear a leather jacket or ride a motorcycle a la his earlier Fonzie persona.   That’s okay.   If you want a high school principal who wears a leather coat and rides a motorcycle through the halls, look no further than 1987’s THE PRINCIPAL’s Rick Latimer.   Sure, he’s got a bit of a drinking problem, and he just beat the crap out of his ex-wife’s new boyfriend’s car.   You’ve gotta cut the guy some slack.   He’s just been demoted to principal at Brandel High, not exactly Hogwarts in its exquisitness.   The great thing about Principal Latimer and THE PRINCIPAL is that he and it turn the cliched story of an educator trying to reach troubled teens on its ear.   This thing gets violent, and more students end up dead than attending graduation day when all is said and done.   Can’t say the guy didn’t try, though.   He does have a drinking problem, you know?

3. Principal Joe Clark (Morgan Freeman in LEAN ON ME)

Lean on Me is a movie loosely based on an inner city principle named Joe Clark. The New Jersey State Government is threatening to take over his school because of low test scores, and Clark must now fight for his students education and well being. With drugs circulating his school, and gangbangers everywhere, Clark must try to reach his students before it is too late. He has his ways and will not put of with teachers who disagree or stand in his way, forcing even the mayor to try and get rid of him. He even made an enemy out of the fire chief for not letting him into the school every time for random testing. When he is arrested for defiance, the entire student body shows up in protest. They want him released and they want him to remain the principal of the school. Because of his hard work and dedication, he not only made an impact on the lives of his students, but also was able to boost the test scores to keep the government from taking over. It’s a movie that shows that when you believe, anything is possible, and Joe Clark believed that!

2. Edward R. Rooney (Jeffrey Jones in FERRIS BUELLER’S DAY OFF)

BUELLER! The sound rings in my ears with shear joy and nostalgia. Everyone’s favorite movie principal to hate. Ed Rooney was the epitome of the arrogant, power-hungry jerk principal. He was a complete and total di**head on every level, and we loved him for that. Jeffrey Jones was great as Rooney — funny, ridiculous and down right mean. We’ve all had at least one in our own lives we could relate to as a “Rooney”. Sure, he wanted nothing more than to take down Ferris Bueller, an idol of high school coolness to many of us, but we knew deep inside that Ed Rooney could never vanquish the almighty Bueller. That’s not to say Ed Rooney wouldn’t try his darndest…

“I did not achieve this position in life by having some snot-nosed punk leave my cheese out in the wind.” — Ed Rooney

How is your cheese now, Mr. Rooney? It bothers to think of how “uncool” Jeffrey Jones was in real life, at least for that portion of it, but I always try and separate an actor’s real life from his “fictional” life in the movies, so here’s to you Rooney, you a**hole!

1. Richard Vernon (Paul Gleason in THE BREAKFAST CLUB)

All principals think they’re students are just a bunch of snot-nosed, little punks who have no respect for authority, right?   I mean, if Principal Vernon from THE BREAKFAST CLUB has taught us anything, it’s that we are all exactly where we are meant to be and no amount of education is going to get us away from our preconceived cliques, right?   That scene between Vernon and the janitor doesn’t really give us much insight into the guy, but, hey, you have to give John Hughes a little bit of credit for trying.   Nonetheless, Richard Vernon remains at the top of the high school movie principal list, because he’s so damned memorable.   A lot of that has to do with the relationships Hughes writes between Vernon and the kids, particularly Judd Nelson’s John Bender.   Who can forget the scene between Vernon and Bender, the tension building between them as Vernon keeps pushing the kid, and you know Bender just wants to bury his fist in Vernon’s face if only he could.   Nelson gets just as much credit as Gleason for making that scene one for the ages, but it also proves it takes two to Tango, and Gleason is just as formidable in this duel of dialogue as Nelson.   As far as high school principals go, Vernon sets the bar for the egotistical head teacher whose only interest in life is keeping order, however that may come about.   There were none as perfectly played before, and there have not been any since.