By Lil Princess
[Welcome to the first in a series of tributes to skinema's breast-loved teensex comedies written by esteemed guest contributors. In our inauguraledition, SexWrecks.com columnist Lil Princess pays proper respect toPrivate Lessons].
In the year 1981 I had barely been pushed out of my mother's pussy. I was still one of those chunky red crying things that I seldom like to think even exist, much less that I was once one of them.
Even though something great happened when I entered this world that would bless it for years to come, which is my presence, a film was made around this year that I believe was mostly panned and not noticed nearly as much as it should have been. If it were up to me this film would be mentioned with the likes of Citizen Kane (1941) and Casablanca (1942).
The name of this film is Private Lessons, and if you have not heard of it, don't worry; you're not alone. Unfortunately most people have not. If you are familiar with it, you are one of the lucky ones, and you should bow down and thank God every day that you have had the chance to see this wonderful piece of cinema.
Like many remember the place they were when Kennedy was shot, or, for my generation, where they were when the twin towers fell, I remember exactly what I was doing when I first saw Private Lessons.
I was watching cable. It was very late at night. I was at my mother's house--this was a year or two ago--and I remember pushing the info button on the remote because it sounded like some kind of bad porno, and it said something about an older maid seducing a very young boy (it was also described as being a "cult classic," but, unfortunately, I still have yet to meet any "cult" that is into this film, but if it's out there, please join forces with me because this is a very powerful and classic piece of cinema).
I remember thinking, Wow, what the fuck can this be, and I wonder how far they can go with it? I'm totally going to watch this whole movie, and if this young boy and this maid end up doing it, and they show it, it will be the most amazing thing ever.
Now I had stumbled upon it that first time, so I had missed maybe the first fifteen minutes, which, after watching it many, many more times, I feel are integral to the film. There is a party and tons of people are swimming and they are all wet and hitting and splashing each other and having a great time.
Well, actually, let me take you back to the very beginning of the movie, the credits sequence, which shows a single leg clad in nylons and wearing a high heel while a woman's voice in the background is fighting with a man's voice about touching her. It is a really long argument, but I think they needed to fit all the credits into it so they had to make it long.
Then the movie establishes itself in a very rich neighborhood with a lot of pools and a lot of guys in Speedos and wet girls splashing water onto each other. This is the first time in the film the famous '80s song "I Need a Lover That Won't Drive Me Crazy" comes on. A random girl gets naked and we are introduced to the main character, Philly, a skinny boy of fourteen with a black bowl cut, and his very overweight, wheezing best friend with glasses who bears the appropriately dorky name Sherman. They both gawk at the naked girl.
Curiously enough, fat Sherman seems to be very schooled in the ways of love and sex. His favorite word is dammit, which he says at least thirty times throughout the film, most frequently when he's advising Philly on matters of the heart and hard-on.
Sherman, in fact, seems to be the main voice of reason in Private Lessons. It makes sense, as he has nothing better to do than to observe, since he is so ugly and fat. He is not a character that deserves any pity though; he is sort of disgusting and is the type that will grow up to be some kind of fat Mancow-type. One who says dammit a lot.
The dammit thing is really prevalent, I would just like to mention again. I started to do a dammit count in the film at least three different times, and each time it got to be too much and I had to give it up because I missed like one or two. Like I said, Sherman says it a lot. It's definitely a sign of sexual frustration.
Of course, Sherman could also end up hanging himself by the time he is seventeen without being able to hear about his best friend Phil's exploits with his older French housekeeper. He does have a big dick though (call me a perv if you want, there are SO many pool shots).
Then we have Philly, the main character, or more properly Phillip. He seems to be called Philly to emphasize his youth and innocence, if you can't tell that by the fact that his voice has not yet changed and he is not even close to having facial hair or starting puberty. I don't know much about the male anatomy, but I'm surprised this young guy can even get a boner, but I guess he can.
One thing about Philly: He has a lot of clothes. He is in a different outfit in almost every scene. I counted. In one single day he had on four different outfits. You can conclude what you want about that. Philly also has a pretty cute butt. I mean you see it enough. With all the goddamn pool shots and half of the shots of Philly being from behind while he is wearing pants that are practically wearing him, the viewer can't do much but stare at this goof's ass throughout the entire movie, and that's a good thing, I believe.
The plot centers on Phillip's dad hiring Nicole Mallow, a very attractive thirty-something French housekeeper, just prior to his departing for a business trip. Miss Mallow is played by skinternational sex siren Sylvia Kristel (Picture: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4), the star of the world-famous Emmanuelle movies.
Miss Mallow instantly embodies the whole French-maid fantasy thing, which I thought only existed for Halloween costumes, but since this is one of the greatest movies ever made, and she's absolutely gorgeous and pulls it off beautifully, it's totally fine.
Also on hand is Lester, the family limo driver, played by Howard Hesseman. Lester is the villain in the movie, which is pretty obvious by only his name. I was a big fan of Head of the Class when I was a kid, and Hesseman was so nice and helpful in his role on that show as the teacher, so it was great to see that he was such a versatile actor, being able to play both a great and inspirational teacher and a creepy villain.
The other character that pops up every once and awhile is Philly's weird pervert of a tennis instructor named Mr. Travis, played by Ed Begley Jr. (maybe he's not perverted, but everyone in this movie wears such fucking short shorts, all the men look like they've just left the bathhouse).
As the title dictates, the most crucial element of the story is Philly's "private lessons."
The French maid and the Head of the Class teacher are actually working together, which you don't realize until the last fifteen minutes of the movie because the director or whoever just threw that part in so that it could have some semblance of a stupid plot rather than just being about some older woman fucking this prepubescent mook.
Lester and Miss Mallow are actually a con team that works together taking care of rich people's houses and then eventually stealing their money and moving somewhere else and doing it to another unsuspecting family.
But this time Miss Mallow was not expecting that there would be such a hot child in the house, so the whole scam gets fucked up because they fall in love, and she decides to give him his "private lessons." (That phrase is really addicting, by the way. Try saying it just once.)
Now there have been many scam movies, but none with the pseudo-kiddie-porn angle like we get in Private Lessons. There's also a long car chase at the end and the song "I Need a Lover That Won't Drive Me Crazy" is played like seventeen more times and Ed Begley Jr. pretends he is a cop and manages to get evil Lester to leave the country because he tries to ransom little Philly for ten thousand dollars (a very laughable amount). But at the end, everything turns out all right.
The plot is what it is, but I would like to focus more on the love between Philly and Miss Mallow. The way it works out is beautiful.
Despite the constant counseling by fat Sherman, Philly is quite clueless in the ways of romance. Out of the beauty of her heart, Nicole is prepared to teach him everything he needs to know about pleasing a woman.
At first Philly accidentally sees Miss Mallow's boobs and is totally freaked out, but she invites him in for a closer look. A mere twenty-six minutes into the film Nicole is rubbing her bare thirty-three-year-old breasts into Philly's face (is this legal in America, and who the fuck cares, it is happening).
Miss Mallow then takes off her robe to reveal her totally perfect nude body, but her Euro pussy is totally blurred out, which pissed me off. I mean it was on cable too, but I was so surprised that this was even on cable the first time I saw it, I couldn't even think about the blurred pussy. I believe during this scene the song "I Need a Lover That Won't Drive Me Crazy" is played again.
But this is too much for Philly and of course he has to take it slower, and of course Nicole understands. She must give him the life lessons that he needs. The "Private Lessons."
After a few sessions with Miss Mallow, Philly becomes more comfortable with her and they prepare to go all the way. She's naked, and of course he is always under the blankets when his dick is going to be shown, because that's a major no-no. You don't see Philly's actual ass, but, as previously noted, his pants are glued to his tight little rump.
Just prior to doing the deed, Philly makes quite a speech. "I am prepared to marry you," he says. "I don't think of you as a whore. I love you." It's a combination of sweet and creepy. Miss Mallow kind of shrugs it off.
After Philly loses his virginity, he leaves the room and does this dance in a room downstairs that rivals, or even tops, Tom Cruise's famous number in Risky Business. It is set to Rod Stewart's song "Tonight's the Night." (I was very surprised that it was not set to "I Need a Lover That Won't Drive Me Crazy.")
There is one more extremely hot scene. About fifty minutes in Philly escorts Miss Mallow to a French restaurant and he manages to remove her underwear (or panties, if you will, but I fucking hate that word) and play with her privates. GO PHILLY! This is all of his own accord. He has become a genuine fucking perv.
Now you have to remember, I have already revealed to you that Nicole the maid is supposed to be running some scam with Lester the limo driver, but throughout the whole movie the viewer does not know this. You would probably just think that this weird shit is just going on, all this blatant dipping into the young stuff. I mean I can understand. (On the q.t., I'd "rob the cradle," so to speak. But, personally, I think Phillip is ugly. The Leo DiCaprio of Growing Pains, on the other hand ... )
Once the thieving and ransom and other crime aspects of the plot get cooking, Miss Mallow wants out. Lester of course gets mad and threatens to tell immigration that she is not an actual citizen of this country and she would have to (gasp) be sent back to France. However, good old faggoty tennis teacher Ed Begley Jr. comes in, dressed in pants for the first time, and pretends he is a detective, so Lester gets the hell out of town.
In one final sex scene, Philly caresses Miss Mallow's mammaries, and I really have no reason to believe that either of the bodies we see belongs to a double. An actual thirty-something woman with an actual young boy. Beautiful. How they got away with it, I will never know, but that is why this film is brilliant. One of the reasons, anyway.
At the end, all the scam plans fall apart because Miss Mallow likes Philly a lot, and although he professes his love for her, the viewer knows it's just a beautiful coming-of-age story, and now the hero is a mature man. Even though Philly still has not one facial hair and speaks like he is castrated.
All other comparable "coming-of-age" stories, like Y tu mam?ambi?/em> (2001), suck in comparison. The dudes are too old. I much prefer Philly. He's a good age. He's almost still a neuter. That's why Private Lessons is so great, and why it was one of the highest-grossing films of 1981. In fact, dollar-for-dollar, it remains one of the top-earning independent films of all time.
And maybe, if you are watching cable late at night, Private Lessons will pop up on the screen. I guarantee that if you watch it, something else will pop up as well.
