Saw this film as an episode of the cult television riffing show, Mystery Science Theater 3000. Most likely I would have never seen the film without them and in the end I did not think this film was all that terrible, but still rather bad. The film does a fairly good job of making one stay tuned to see how things were going to end up and the guy who owned the bar and his brother-in-law were kind of entertaining in their way too, but for the most part you have to watch a completely dummy doing everything he can to win over a girl who is clearly using him. He is supposed to be so smart, but lets her play him for a complete fool. The ending is pretty much a bummer, but that really did not come as a surprise to me.The story has a guy that is in line to get recommended for a scholarship who really knows his Shakespeare about to get a beating by the dolt of the school before his girl bails him out and then accepts his offer for a date. She goes on another date and of course she would really appreciate it if Marvin (the super chump)can write her paper too. He does, they get caught and Marvin cracks under the pressure and the girl lets him know she was using him, but that does not stop him from planning a heist of one million dollars which he stupidly tells her about and she informs the dolt and then everything gets messed up and people end up getting shot left and right! This made for a very funny episode of MST3K. The film was short and was preceded by a short that took up an entire section of the show, which leaves me to believe they cut a good deal out of this one as it had a running time of an hour and 10 minutes so there were probably a few things left out like who those two guys were that showed up at the end with the guns. My favorite part was when Servo kept making ferry jokes and Mike just picks him and tosses him.So this film was not horrible as I was totally curious to see how things were going to end up for Marvin. There was a surprise as far as his father, but I thought it was going to end tragic as far as him and his love interest were concerned. I felt bad for the two gentlemen who Marvin got to pull the heist with him though as they got a bit more than they bargained for mainly due to Marvin. Not only did the guy blab to his love interest about the heist and all the details, he also insisted they leave at a set time instead of going early which ended up being another huge mistake. Be quiet, leave early and then show up at the love of your life in a new car and a smile and say, "Get on in" instead.

Is this a great film? By no means. Is it as bad as they say it is? I just don't think so. I suspect people the majority of those who watched this film saw the MST3k version and take enjoyment out of saying that it "sucks". High School Big Shot is one of the better movies to get the MST3k treatment; as much as it still made great riffing-fodder, it actually had some decent acting for such a low-budget. While certain aspects of the story were very one-dimensional, other parts were a bit complicated. The only aspect of the plot that was downright lousy was the end. The ending is not only abrupt but makes very little sense! I couldn't have predicted such an awful ending from the rest of the film which was not only entertaining but even relatable. This film had an overall anti-woman theme, painting women as being only interested in financial-gain. I won't comment on whether or not such themes have a place in our society, but it has the potential to anger some viewers. However, very small dialog changes could have avoided that problem and still held the movie together.Not great, but pretty good for a cheap noir flick. Give it a watch.PS: Star Trek fans might get a kick out of the appearance of Stanley Adams, who played Cyrano Jones in the TOS episode "The Trouble with Tribbles".

This movie is a solid 6 in my book. I watched it as an MST3K episode but could have easily been entertained by it on it's own. I like heist movies and as easily as I knew this one was doomed to failure, I actually was getting nervous for this guy. Throw in a very bad slut, so really stupid greasers (well I guess most greasers are really stupid), and the finishing touch is the safe-cracker with class who I'm pretty sure was the shyster in the Trouble With Tribbles episode of Star Trek (one of the best loved ST TOS episodes ever) and its definitely a 6 rated low budget noir. Hey, Beast of Yucca Flats an under 2 rated movie? Absolutely, but High School Big Shot deserves much higher. The MST3K treatment almost does it a disservice, almost. There are some pretty good one liners to use in this, the MST3K boys did miss some good really spot on jokes but they passed because they are so PC and hold back from things like gay cracks, like in the beginning when the greaser tucks Marv's shirt in his pants (maybe too close to home for them?). High School Big Shot, I rate 6 out of 10, if you like noir see it first without the commentary. As a MST3K episode its one of the above average episodes, comes with a funny bread salesman short before it.

Make no mistake about, High School Bigshot is a bad movie.High School Bigshot is about a geek who makes a plan to become rich and get the girl. However, he goes about it all wrong, and of course by the end of the movie ends up dead along with a few other people, thankfully including the girl.The moral of the story is all women care about is wealth. Also for us men, I guess we're just supposed to accept we either "have it" or "we don't have it"! I could easily see how this movie could be rated a 1, however it is above that of the very worst of movies. The acting's not totally horrible, and production values aren't ultra-terrible. Over all it's a bad movie and not worth viewing for many reasons. If you insist of course at torturing yourself, watch the MST version. 2/10 (maybe a 1.5/10)