Sunset High School on Film — 1970
by Paula Bosse
Pep rally in progress… (click for larger image)
by Paula Bosse
Thanks to the heads-up from UNT media librarian and film/video archivist Laura Treat, I now know about “Spotlight on North Texas,” a collaborative project between the University of North Texas Libraries and the Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI) to preserve North Texas film history. The bulk of the collection centers on Denton County, but there are the occasional glimpses of Dallas, such as the 3-part “Sunset on Film” which was shot by student James Dunlap in and around Sunset High School in 1970 on Super-8 film (without sound). It’s definitely a student effort — nerdy and charming — but it has lots of great footage, and if you are a Sunset alum, you’ll probably see a lot of familiar sights from your Oak Cliff school days. And for those who missed the era when high school students dressed like extras from The Partridge Family or The Brady Bunch — and who swarmed to get their bikes after school (when was the last time you saw that?!) — this will be almost exotic.
PART 1 (running time 7:55) is here (click image on UNT site, then click the “play” arrow — don’t forget to watch in full-screen). The images below are screenshots from the digitized film; they are larger — and grainier — when clicked.
Vogue Theater alert!
PART 2 (running time 11:51) is here.
Pep rally alert!
PART 3 (running time 10:43) is here.
Groovy mini-skirt alert!
AMC Gremlin alert!
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Sources & Notes
More about last year’s “Spotlight on North Texas” project can be found here. You can see what’s been uploaded here. They also have a Facebook page, here.
All images in this post are screenshots taken from the film(s) “Sunset on Film,” which was donated by Blaine Dunlap to the Spotlight on North Texas collection, University of North Texas Media Library; accessible on the UNT-hosted Portal to Texas History website.
More on filmmaker Blaine Dunlap can be found in “Spotlight on Dallas Filmmakers: Blaine Dunlap” by Laura Treat, here.
See a related Flashback Dallas post about another of Blaine Dunlap’s films, “Sometimes I Run: Dallas Noir — 1973.”
Thanks, Laura!
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Copyright © 2017 Paula Bosse. All Rights Reserved.
Flashback : Dallas 
Soon as I saw a shot of the building’s rear during the powder puff football game, I thought “huh. That looks like it was built around 1925.” (The construction is the dead spit of my own high school, built in 1926.) So I go to Wikipedia to see how close I got, and …
Sunset High School, built and opened 1925.
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I remember seeing this film back in 1970.
We had an assembly in the auditorium where the film was shown to the students.
I’ve asked others from my class about this film and if they knew whatever became of it.
Many from my class don’t even remember this film…
So glad to see it up and running!!!
Boy…Those were the days!!!
God Bless America!!!
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It must be pretty cool seeing this all these years later!
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Yes, it’s great to see this video posted for all to view!
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[…] since. The 22-minute film, shot in 1973 by SMU film student Blaine Dunlap (who also made the fun 1970 Sunset High School film I wrote about earlier this year) shows Dallas Public Works Dept. street flusher Stanley Maupin at […]
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Thank you for all the gift of time and effort to share past memories of our Sunset Years. Thanks to all who were a part of making these memories a bit dearer as we grow older. Joy Waybright ’72
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[…] is Blaine Dunlap — I have posted links to two of his films, both of which I really enjoyed: “Sunset High School on Film — 1970″ (which he made while he was a Sunset student) and “‘Sometimes I Run’: Dallas Noir […]
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[…] 1. SUNSET HIGH SCHOOL ON FILM — 1970 […]
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