Private Lessons ( 1981 )

Private Lessons ( 1981 ) (DVD) (*)

Out of Stock

Language Selections:
English ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )
German ( Dolby Digital 2.0 )

Product Origin/Format:
Germany ( PAL/Region 2 )

Running Time:
83 min

Aspect Ratio:
Anamorphic Widescreen (1.85:1)

Special Features:
Interactive Menu
Scene Access

Movie filmed in 1981 and produced in:
United States ( USA, Canada )

Directed By:
Alan Myerson

Written By:
Alan Myerson
Dan Greenburg

Actors:
Sylvia Kristel ..... Nicole Mallow
Howard Hesseman ..... Lester Lewis
Eric Brown ..... Phillip Fillmore
Meridith Baer ..... Miss Phipps
Pamela Jean Bryant ..... Joyce
Peter Elbling ..... Waiter
Patrick Piccininni ..... Sherman
Ed Begley Jr. ..... Jack Travis
Ron Foster ..... Mr. Fillmore
Dan Barrows ..... Green, The Gardener
Marian Gibson ..... Florence
Judy Helden ..... Miss Kristel's Double
Dan Greenburg ..... Hotel Owner

Synopsis:

Phillip Filmore is a naive, 15-year-old, preoccupied with sex, who develops a crush on Nicole Mallow, the new 30-something, French housekeeper and sitter to look after him when Phillip's father is out of town for the summer on a 'business' trip. But Mr. Filmore's unscrupulous chauffeur, Lester Lewis, takes advantage of Phillip's crush on Nicole to hire her to seduce the youth, then draws her into a plot to fake her own death in a blackmail scheme aimed to drain Phillip's trust fund.

Private Lessons is the prototypical example of 'young man, older woman' subgenre of the teen sex comedy. The teen-seduced-by-older-woman plot hook was novel at the time, and the ambitiously plotted script mixes some blackmail and suspense elements in with the usual sex-comedy high jinx. Even better, Private Lessons is a very well-cast film: Sylvia Kristel fulfills the fantasy-woman role nicely, Eric Brown makes a believably hormonal teen and reliable performers like Howard Hesseman and Ed Begley Jr. flesh out the cast nicely. Unfortunately, Private Lessons doesn't deliver on its modest amount of promise. Dan Greenburg's script fails to craft its workable elements into a tight story, and the limp direction by television vet Alan Myerson makes this a film that crawls at a snail's pace when it should be full of energy. The only parts of Private Lessons that are memorable are the scenes where Kristel seduces Brown and those are more unnerving than they are sexy when one learns Brown was only 16 years old at the time. In short, Private Lessons might function as a wish-fulfillment fantasy for teen boys, but it isn't all that worthwhile as entertainment.

This product was added to our catalog on Tuesday 22 January, 2019.

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