“If that’s Charles Bronson, ask him if his tallywacker wants some poontang!”

For that line alone, I stayed with this movie.

If you ever wondered what Grease would look like if it were shot in a weekend by people who primarily worked in the adult industry, Patrick Wright’s Hollywood High is your answer. Wright, a man usually cast as “Large Truck Driver #2” in exploitation flicks, takes the director’s chair here to deliver a disjointed, sun-drenched, and largely topless day in the life of the most delinquent students in Tinseltown.

Jan (Susanne Severeid, Don’t Answer the Phone) Candy (Sherry Hardin, Ten Violent Women), Monica (Rae Sperling) and Bebe (Marcy Albrecht) spend most of this movie topless and smoking the stickiest of the icky with Frasier Mendoza, hooking up with the Fenz (Kevin Mead; guess who he’s supposed to be) and Buzz (Joseph Butcher, not far removed from playing the latter side of Bigfoot and Wildboy), hanging out with sex symbol of the past June East (yes, Mae West, but played by Marla Winters), having classes with stereotype teachers like the mincing Mr. Flowers (Hy Pyke, Grandpa from Hack-O-Lantern) and the overly horny Miss Crotch (Kress Hytes) when they’re not being chased by a cop, who they eventually hit with a watermelon and take his pants off, revealing that he’s wearing lingerie.

Turner Classic Movies notes the existence of an unrelated 30-minute television pilot, also debuting in 1977, for a prospective series. It featured Annie Potts and aired as part of NBC’s Comedy Time.  It also spawned an unrelated sequel (Hollywood High 2), proving that there is always a market for teens in trouble as long as the cast remains unencumbered by shirts.

For the film historians hiding among the exploitation fans, there is one genuine highlight: a crisp, 1970s shot of the Cinerama Dome in its prime. It’s a brief moment of architectural dignity in a movie that otherwise features people stealing pants and smoking out of makeshift bongs.

You can watch this on Tubi.