Library Journal describes Stephen Armstrong’s new book I Want You Around: The Ramones and the Making of Rock 'n' Roll High School this way: “Seeking to cash in on the disco craze and teen-driven success of Grease, schlock impresario Roger Corman greenlit director Allan Arkush’s story pitch for a high school musical starring the Ramones. … At the heart of this comprehensively researched and detailed book is the fully documented nuts-and-bolts story of the evolution, production, and post-production history of the 1979 cult-classic film Rock ‘N’ Roll High School. Juxtaposed with the narrative arc of the making of the film are the revelatory insights into how the business of filmmaking worked at Corman’s famed, on-the-cheap New World Pictures. Then, of course, there are the godfathers of punk, the Ramones. …”
Stephen Armstrong is a film historian and author of several books, including Paul Bartel: The Life and Films, Pictures about Extremes: The Films of John Frankenheimer, and Andrew V. McLaglen: The Life and Hollywood Career. A professor of English, he teaches in the Creative Writing and Professional & Technical Writing emphases at Utah Tech University.
