Private Lessons (1981)

"My breasts, how do you like them?”
"Oh, they're, uh...very nice."
"Would you like to touch them?"

The Story:

Instead of going to camp this year, 15 year old Philly (Eric Brown) is planning on spending his summer vacation with his buddy. Together, the two spy on girls and engage in ill-informed sex talk. However, Philly is about to be very informed because the new French housekeeper (Sylvia Kristel) is apparently an insatiable nymphomaniac who is all too eager to give him some private lessons. Philly (and the audience) is obviously confounded because it’s certainly too good to be true…right?

The Review:

Having now seen all three parts of Ben Efraim’s unofficial “Private Trilogy,” I can say that Lessons is the wildest and ballsiest of the three. And how could it not be with Emmanuelle herself moving in to give a fifteen year old kid the type of sex ed course you can only read about in Penthouse? That’s exactly what happens, and the movie does not shy away from it. Private Lessons is indeed pretty much all about a hot 30 year old maid wanting to jump the bones of a kid half her age. To make matters even more absurd, Brown looks like he’s about twelve years old, so all of the sex scenes are intensely awkward. Apparently, the film came really close to breaking laws, so much so that the production had to bounce over into another state whose age of consent laws were in its favor. I can only imagine the stir this movie caused because it’s just as unbelievable as it sounds.

It’s also kind of funny, too, even if you are a little uncomfortable with how weird it is (technically speaking, it involves rape). I mean, it’s the ultimate adolescent fantasy, and there’s certainly a genuine quality to how both Philly and his buddy Sherman react to the whole thing. When we first meet them, they’re crashing a graduation party by peeking in on some disrobed graduates, much to the dismay of one of their (very hot) teachers. And like all kids this age, they think they know a lot about the ways of the woman, when they clearly don’t. Sherman is especially funny in his insistence that Ms. Mallow is just a whore, albeit one with a heart of gold. I’d give Brown credit for his acting in the scenes he shares with Kristel, but I’m fairly sure his doe-eyed, shit-eating grin reactions are genuine. Surely the envy of most adolescent males in 1981, he not only shares the screen with Kristel, but also a bed, a bathtub, the backseat of a limo, and more. What’s really nuts is that no one in the movie even seems to bat an eye; he takes her out to wine and dine, removes her panties in a restaurant, and even fondles her in the middle of a theater, which alarms no one.

Eventually, there’s a secret that explains why something unreal is happening. This causes the film to take a hard right turn that moves it away from a crazy sex romp and its light coming-of-age themes, which it trades in for a zany farce involving a bungled caper and Howard Hesseman. Brace yourself, but it obviously just isn’t as interesting as the rest of the movie, which somehow manages to be both sleazy and harmless all at once. Yeah, 25 years later, this is the kind of stuff that makes for sensational headlines; however, there’s more than a few guys out there giving a wry smile underneath their faux disdain at such headlines as they blast “Hot for Teacher” by Van Halen. This movie is pretty much the cinematic equivalent of that--its lens basically leers at every scantily clad female it captures (of which there are many) and it bops along with a soundtrack featuring the likes of Rod Stewart, John Cougar (!) Mellencamp, and Eric Clapton. In the end, Private Lessons certainly wants you to share in the triumph of a fifteen year old kid who spends his summer break getting the lessons he’ll use school all the girls he meets at Fredrick Douglass High…including that hot teacher who warned him to stick with girls his age. (Brett G.)

Tale of the Tape:

7 out of a possible 10 inches.

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