Private Lessons
Private Lessons
R | 26 August 1981 (USA)
Private Lessons Trailers

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.

Reviews
bkoganbing

Watching Private Lessons made me feel most sorry for young Patrick Piccininni who is the best friend of Eric Brown. While he gets all that experience and adventure with Sylvia Kristel as the new French housekeeper, his friend has this little old lady as his housekeeper.Both these kids have all the graces of the more sophisticated kids from Porky's. When we meet them they are ogling the slightly older girls at a neighboring pool party. Later Brown gets to spend a few weeks alone while dad played by Ron Foster gets in a little business with pleasure. Hard to believe that even with the idle rich a kid would be essentially unsupervised over a summer. Not like Foster couldn't afford anything. Not even a relative of some kind.So Brown is left alone with Sylvia Kristel and she seduces him. But it's all part of a plot to part him from a lot of his trust fund money. Guiding the plot is family chauffeur Howard Hesseman who does have a few good lines and some great facial expressions.All in all the whole thing is rather puerile and stupid. A rich kid's Porky's.

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Brian T. Whitlock (GOWBTW)

Ten years ago, there was "Summer of '42". "Private Lessons" is like sex education of the 20th Century. A young boy named Philip Fillmore(Eric Brown, before "Mama's Family") is curious about one thing: SEX! Every teenage boy is going to get curious about it. So during a graduation party, he and his buddy, Sherman(Patrick Piccininni) spy on a young woman undressing. Busted by their lovely teacher, Miss Phipps(Meredith Baer). Instead of punishing him, she gives him a chance to find out over the summer. So when he goes to his father's house, he meets a maid(Syliva Kristel) from Europe who gives him a lesson in sex he'll never forget. She lures him into her room, undresses right in front of him one article of clothing at a time. Some boys would scream and take off at this moment. Tells his buddy, doesn't buy it. It's true! Unbeknownst to him, that his father's chauffeur(Howard Hessman) is after his money. So he and Nicole Mallow(The seductive maid) feign a crime. She later wants out, and help Phillip instead. The summer adventure couldn't have been better for Phillip. The crime wasn't a big deal, the experience he had will last for a lifetime! Summer of '42 was very mild, Private Lessons was very provocative. Both are good! 5 stars!!

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phillip78

It is obviously illegal. Pedophiles pray on stuff like this. How did they get away with making such a movie? This movie is all summed up in one word, SICK. Where do people get off making, and watching these kinds of films. As I was watching the movie I didn't actually think they would allow this kid that is say maybe 12 if that actually sleep with this woman. Sorry if this is a spoiler to you but I would have rater not seen this. Where has the sanity of these people gone? Maybe the makers of this movie are pedophiles? Our society today is filled with all types of sexual predators that pray upon children, yet film makers make these types of movies that do nothing but provoke this type of behavior. I noticed that on a previous comment someone asked if there was a version where it showed them naked. This is a kid here, and someone is asking something like this? What is wrong with this picture?

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JoeKarlosi

When a rich man leaves town for a business trip, he leaves his young 15-year-old son Philly (Eric Brown) at home in the care of his sexy foreign housemaid, Miss Mallow (Sylvia Kristel) and their sniveling chauffeur Lester (Howard Hesseman - 'Johnny Fever' of WKRP IN CINCINNATI). Like many red-blooded teenage boys, Philly and his young buddy Sherman are looking for cheap thrills by spying on sun bathing girls and dreaming of sex. What a surprise Philly's in for when Miss Mallow catches him watching her undress from outside the window one night and then invites him inside to get the best view. Soon, the maid is seducing the boy, and Philly begins to experience every adolescent male's fantasy - scoring with an older woman. The problem is, Miss Mallow and her partner Lester have other plans in store for this aspiring Casanova.I first saw this unusually risqué teenage comedy/sex fantasy back in 1981 when I was 19, which was considerably older than the 15-year-old character is. But the dream was still something I could relate to, and when I saw that a DVD release was coming out I decided to revisit it and see how it stood up, so to speak, after 25 years. Turns out it's still fun, and Eric Brown is humorous as he stammers while trying to contain his excitement at seeing Sylvia Kristel (and her body double in some shots) naked. Kristel was popular doing this type of film in Europe, so it was interesting to see her in an American production doing something that would never be allowed at your local cineplex today. Not only are some of her sequences sensual, but there are a fair amount of laughs, some of them courtesy of Philly's pudgy know-it-all friend Sherman, and also from Howard Hesseman who has some funny moments being pushed around and humiliated by Ed Begley Jr! As is the case with many early '80s teen comedies, the soundtrack is pretty good too, and features music from Rod Stewart, Air Supply and John Cougar, among others.The most easily obtainable version of this film I would guess is now the 2006 Lions Gate DVD, but purists should be warned that a couple of quick lower frontal nudity shots have been obscured on this release by an annoying white dot. Well, it's not like this is great art, and the movie doesn't really suffer from the brief obliteration. Besides, this was a forgotten cult classic of sorts and hard to locate for so long that it's just good to be able to view it again. I know some people get uptight about this daring film, especially in these days, but relax. It's just a fun little movie, if not a great one, and sometimes even has a little bit of charm to it as well. And it's nothing that many average teenage boys aren't thinking about already. *** out of ****

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