May 6 - May 27, 2023 Watch Local: John Marshall High School Series | PRETTY IN PINK, BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, GROSSE POINTE BLANK and CHAIN CAMERA
ABOUT THE SERIES: School’s out for summer! Well… almost. This month, the American Cinematheque takes a tour through the halls of Los Feliz’s very own John Marshall High School as its students ace their final exams and prep for the Senior prom. John Marshall’s striking Collegiate Gothic architecture has been the backdrop for dozens of films, TV series, music videos, and commercials, from Van Halen’s 1984 “Hot for Teacher” classroom romp on MTV to beloved nostalgia flicks like GREASE and LA BAMBA. While real alumni such as Julie Newmar, Leonardo DiCaprio, and will.i.am have taken stage and screen by storm since the school’s 1931 opening, it’s John Marshall’s fictional student body that’s made the building’s façade, hallways, gym, and football field a familiar setting across decades of entertainment history. Watch Andie and Duckie trade jeers with the “richies” in Howard Deutch’s PRETTY IN PINK (1986), then catch the OG Buffy Summers showdown with vampires and cheerleaders alike in 1992’s BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER. Follow professional assassin Martin Q. Blank to a darkly comic 10-year reunion in GROSSE POINTE BLANK (1997), and don’t miss a rare chance to see the class of 2001 transform into their own movie stars in Kirby Dick’s experimental documentary CHAIN CAMERA. John Marshall High School photograph courtesy of Jared Cowan.