Audience Member
Dan Greenburg has written plenty of books, including the Zack Films and Secrets of Dripping Fang children's books. He's also had several of his books made into movies, including the Elvis Presley film Live a Little, Love a Little, which was based off his work Kiss My Firm But Pliant Lips, Foreplay, Private School, The Guardian and the movie we're about to discuss, which was based on his book Philly.
It's directed by Alan Myerson, who was O.K. Corrales in Billy Jack and directed Police Academy 5, as well as episodes of Ally McBeal, Friends, The Larry Sanders Show and more. In case you're wondering, "Does Alan Myerson know comedy?" the answer is yes, as he's one of the people who helped found The Committee, which counted folks like Howard Hesseman, David Ogden Stiers, Carl Gottlieb, Rob Reiner and Del Close.
That said, Private Lessons made me question my younger self. To wit: when you're fifteen years old, the opportunity to lose one's virginity to Sylvia Kristel seems like a dream come true. But when you're getting close to fifty, you start to cringe at scenes where she tries to lure this film's protagonist into a bathtub or makes out with him in the back of a limo. It doesn't seem like a fantasy any longer. It feels wrong.
Philip "Philly" Fillmore (Eric Brown, Waxwork) is a 15-year-old high school student whose father has left him alone for the summer with the only supervision coming from Lester the chauffeur (Howard Hesseman) and Nicole Mallow (Kristel), the family's new French maid. Sure, Kristel is really Dutch, but we're not here to quibble about her nationality.
All of her seduction games with our newly pubescent protagonist are all a ruse. She's an illegal alien who Lester is using in a scheme against Philly and his father. Once they have sex, she's going to fake her death and Lester will help Philly bury her body. Then, the kid will have to steal ten grand to keep the mysterious demise of Nicole a secret.
The weird thing is, even when Philly busts Lester, he ends up letting the guy keep his job. Once you also see this movie through the eyes of someone from 2021, you realize that Philly is a rich white kid who is going to grow up to be a creep, empowered by the knowledge that he was able to subjugate those in castes below him and still get to repeatedly struggle snuggle with the woman who was once Emmanuelle, despite the fact that she states numerous times in the movie that she feels guilt for having taken his innocence. He has no innocence to speak of, as the last scene in the film shows, where he boldly inquires for a date with a teacher who already informed him that she found his intentions upsetting. I guess money can solve so much, but I wouldn't really know.
Now for the fun parts.
This movie was Jack Barry & Dan Enright Productions, who usually stuck to producing game shows. They even used one of their announcers, Jay Stewart, to do the trailer's voice-over. Barry received a lot of hate mail for this film from loyal viewers of his shows who were disgusted by the content of Private Lessons. As a result, he never made another film again.
Yet even more intriguing was the fact that this was the first picture for Jensen Farley Pictures, a subsidiary of Sunn Classic Pictures. Yes, after years of making movies just for America's families, Jensen Farley would release stuff like The Boogens and another movie where an older woman — Joan Collins! — would deflower a younger man, Homework.
I can't even imagine the music budget on this movie, because it has everything from Air Supply's "Lost In Love" to Eric Clapton, Earth, Wind and Fire, John Cougar and "Hot Legs" "Tonight's The Night," and "You're in My Heart" from Rod Stewart.
It's also the American debut of Jan de Bont, who was the cinematographer here and would go on to make Speed and Twister.
I should mention that I despise Eric Brown even more now, because not only did he get to do multiple love scenes with Sylvia Kristel, but he did the very same thing in They're Playing With Fire, except that that time, the kid got to appear with Sybil Danning.
Another last revelation: I now realize that many of the women I've dated are just me trying to find my own Sylvia Kristel. Sadly, the real thing had a very rough life that was dominated by addiction and a quest to find a man who could replace her father.
Man, I should never write about comedies, huh?
PS: I totally forgot that Pamela Bryant from Don't Answer the Phone! is in this.
Rated 2.5/5 Stars •
Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars
02/06/23
Full Review
Audience Member
One of my favorite films of my youth. Very refreshing when compared to today's views. Charismatic cast and a great soundtrack
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/23/23
Full Review
Audience Member
This is the type of movie you only see once and there is no need to see it again.Plot is thin and the kid isnt a very good actor,not surprising his career didnt go any where.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
02/24/23
Full Review
joseph s
Couldn't deal with this movie. quit 15 minutes in. Guess I should have read the description before trying to watch.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
03/31/23
Full Review
Audience Member
I've seen some bad movies, but none worse than this!
Rated 1/5 Stars •
Rated 1 out of 5 stars
02/05/23
Full Review
Audience Member
Private Lessons barely passes for a film once it's sexual material runs out because from then it just becomes an empty plotted and stupid story without valid direction or entertainment, but if you look underneath the sexual content of the first half you'll find literally nothing.
Private Lessons is supposedly a sex comedy, but I found anything other than the seductive Sylvie Kristel to be merely rudimentary and pointed out that the lack of effort put into a film of Private Lessons calibre is annoyingly hollow and utterly forgettable. Private Lessons follows the plot of an entertaining pornographic film, but with less nudity than enough to be sufficiently entertaining. The plot is a teenage boy's fantasy about a sexy maid who is attracted to 15 year olds and is willing to strip and put out to ensure that point is made valid, but during the scenes without the actual maid I was merely bored to death by Eric Brown who couldn't hold his own or supply any form of entertainment which leaves us wondering why Sylvie Kristel would have sex with him in the first place. Then we remember its because of the film's stupid plot and poor casting which resulted in a series of forgettable and tedious characters who Sylvie Kristel is forced to share the screen with.
Even though her performance isn't perfect, she supplies the sexual attractiveness the story would require, and she brings some of her Emmanuelle charm over even though its burdened with untalented directing and stupendous writing. She's still sexy though, but it could have been capitalised on more rather than used briefly before she became no longer important to the story.
The cinematography is also terrible because its unbalanced the whole time and make things look like the entire film was done in front of an acid-tripping blue screen, and there are pointless random zooms to pointless spots which don't benefit the film at all and confuse the simple minded viewers that would watch this crap with the intention of receiving entertainment.
Private Lessons essentially only has the appeal of a porn movie plot being played out into a more "realistic" setting and appealing to a teenage audience with the nudity in use, but to fans of films it won't have the same effect but rather bring out the disdain for cheaply-plotted films and comedies which are less funny than The Last House on the Left. There's vague entertainment for a while, but it all completely falls apart once Sylvie Kristel "dies", because that's when the already lifeless "film" does as well.
Rated 0.5/5 Stars •
Rated 0.5 out of 5 stars
01/27/23
Full Review
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