{"id":7029,"date":"2024-10-25T12:00:16","date_gmt":"2024-10-25T16:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=7029"},"modified":"2024-10-25T12:00:16","modified_gmt":"2024-10-25T16:00:16","slug":"private-school","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/25\/private-school\/","title":{"rendered":"Private School"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Private School <\/strong>(1983)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, full frontal nudity, strong sexual dialogue and content, alcohol abuse)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Noel Black\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Dan Greenburg and Suzanne O’Malley\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: N\/A\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Walter Lassally\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 29, 1983 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Phoebe Cates, Betsy Russell, Matthew Modine, Michael Zorek, Kathleen Wilhoite, Jonathan Prince, Fran Ryan, Sylvia Kristel, Ray Walston, Martin Mull, Kari Lizer, Richard Stahl, Julie Payne, Frances Bay, Frank Aletter.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $14M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Private School<\/strong> is one of the many “horny teenager” movies that came out in the early 80s. What sets it apart from the likes of Porky\u2019s, Joysticks and Screwballs is the sweet love story at its raunchy little heart. The love story concerns Chrissy (Cates, Fast Times at Ridgemont High) and her boyfriend Jim (Modine, Full Metal Jacket), two teens in love who believe they\u2019re ready to take the next step in their relationship. They decide to \u201cdo it\u201d. Naturally, there\u2019s a lot of confusion on their part about the subject of sex. That alone would have made for a nice summer make-out movie. In keeping with the times, Private School <\/strong>has a lot more of its mind; namely, teen hijinks that involve Jim\u2019s horny friends\u2019 continual attempts to score with members of the opposite sex.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The girls attend Cherryvale Academy; the guys go to Freemount. Jim is basically decent, but also dim. He keeps going along with his two friends- fat, sex crazy Bubba (Zorek, Hot Moves) and geeky Roy (Prince, Halloween II)- and their schemes to peek at naked girls. Thus we get scenes of the guys hiding in girls locker rooms and peeping in windows. At one point, they sneak into the all-girls school in drag. Hey, it was the 80s; all of this stuff was still okay.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At Cherryvale, Chrissy is the \u201cgood girl\u201d- i.e. virgin. Her archrival is “bad girl” Jordan (Russell, Avenging Angel). She wants to steal Jim away from Chrissy. Why? Because she’s the “bad girl”, that\u2019s why. Chrissy’s roommate Betsy (Wilhoite, Roadhouse) is a tomboy who doesn\u2019t take any of Jordan’s crap. There’s a sex education teacher named Ms. Copoletta (Kristel, Private Lessons) and a strict headmistress Miss Dutchbok (Ryan, Stripes) that the girls call \u201cMiss Douchebag.\u201d She’s the obligatory uptight authority figure whose only concern is raising money to build a new wing on the school. This part of the “plot” is never resolved, so why even mention it in the first place?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Among the comedic high\/low points are a literal example of “bareback horse riding” by Jordan and an unbelievable Parents Day at Cherryvale. Most of the parents are middle-aged perverts. Let me ask you this, why would the school administrators allow the girls to play water volleyball wearing skimpy bikinis on such an important day? Answer, it gives the pervert dads something to ogle at while visiting their daughters.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The only reasonable parent in Private School<\/strong> is Chrissy’s father. He gives Jim solid advice while he and his daughter are having a lovers spat. Let me explain something you probably already know. All of these movies have to include a scene where the bad girl tries to seduce the good girl’s boyfriend. The good girl walks in and misunderstands the situation. It\u2019s followed by a period of agonizing separation before the inevitable scene where they kiss and make up. That’s exactly what happens here. You\u2019d think Chrissy would be smart enough to know it was just another one of Jordan’s schemes, but nobody is smarter than the script needs them to be in these horny teenager movies.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Getting back to the romance part of the Private School<\/strong>, it plays out like clockwork. It has the obligatory scenes of Jim and Chrissy preparing for the big night. She awkwardly makes hotel reservations using a fake name and giving WAY too much information. She goes to buy condoms in the same pharmacy where Miss Dutchbok happens to be doing some shopping. And so forth. Things get real when they finally reach the proverbial moment of truth. They\u2019re both scared and unsure. They talk openly about their fears and concerns. They\u2019re scared of how it will change their relationship. I give director Noel Black (Pretty Poison) a lot of credit for addressing such issues.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The rest of Private School<\/strong> is standard teen trash material. The boys try and try (unsuccessfully, of course) to get laid. Pranks are played. Betsy leaves a burning bag of horse manure outside Jordan’s dorm room. In one scene, Betsy and Bubba climb into the front seat of a limo only to realize Dutchbok and Chrissy\u2019s dad\u2019s chauffeur (Walston, Fast Times at Ridgemont High) are in the back seat getting it on. They turn on the car\u2019s microphone so everybody on campus can hear them. There’s another scene where Bubba accidentally gets into bed with the girls’ butch gym teacher (Payne, Fraternity Vacation). I could go on and on about the shenanigans in Private <\/strong>School, but it doesn’t matter since they’re nearly identical to the situations in any horny teenager movie.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I will say that Cates and Modine deliver sweet performances. They have real chemistry. Wilhoite is hilarious as Chrissy’s roommate while Russell makes a perfect bad girl. Overall, the performances in Private School<\/strong> aren’t terrible. In fact, they’re just right for a movie like this. The usual collection of character types is present and accounted for. It has better production values than the usual cheap teen sex comedy. Overall, it\u2019s not bad.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I’d like to end this review with a funny anecdote I heard involving this movie. A middle-aged couple went to see Private School (directed by Noel Black). It was clear that the wife was uncomfortable as she nervously tittered at the characters\u2019 hijinks. The husband slowly became infuriated. Finally, he turns to her and says, “I can’t believe Noel Coward wrote this.” She replied “Dear, that was Private Lives.” It was a popular stage play at the time. LOL! Sometimes, the people in the audience can be just as entertaining (if not more) than the movie itself.\"\"<\/p>\n

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Private School (1983)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Universal\/Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 88 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (language, full frontal nudity, strong sexual dialogue and content, alcohol abuse)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Noel Black\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Dan Greenburg and Suzanne O’Malley\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: N\/A\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Walter Lassally\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: July 29, 1983 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Phoebe Cates, Betsy Russell, Matthew Modine, Michael Zorek, Kathleen Wilhoite, Jonathan Prince, Fran Ryan, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7384,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-comedies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Private-School-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7029"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7386,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7029\/revisions\/7386"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}