Intensity   Stupidity:Nudity Ratio 5:7 Budget Medium

Private School is the same basic plot as any number of teen movies from the 80's. A group of cool kids plays pranks on their teachers while the guys spend a lot of time spying on girls. Phoebe Cates is probably the main focus of the movie as we spend more time with her than any other character and she does a good job carrying the movie. The movie calls for someone incredibly cute and Phoebe fits the bill. Big brown eyes, tiny button nose, lots of teeth and tons of energy. Betsy Russell plays the bad girl who is not really bad, just a bit spoiled. While she is envious of Cates' love interest, Mathew Modine, she doesn't really go after him. Other than being a bit rude, she treats the others pretty well and is treated okay in return. When the guys sneak into the dorm dressed as girls, she turns the tables on them and causes a temporary rift between Cates and Modine. This is quickly patched up and the movie moves along to a cheerful ending. It was not unusual for the beautiful but bitchy characters in teen movies to have repugnant parents. Whether this is nature vs. nurture we won't get into right now, but it was a frequent way to either bring the characters down a peg or to create a bit of sympathy for them. Private School doesn't let this cliche go unmined and gets some broad physical comedy out of it and generates some compassion for Russell's character as well.

Probably what most people (especially guys) remember about the movie is Betsy's bareback riding scene. I think this may be reason enough to see the movie all by itself. Guys watch these kinds of movie is to see attractive naked women. We relate to the character who sneaks into the showers a lot more than we would like to admit. We wouldn't actually do something like that, but we would rent a movie where someone does, which is completely different. Honest. It is not the same thing at all. Nope, not even close.

Despite having one of the most famous nude scenes ever just the year before, Cates does not show her breasts in this one. This is an interesting call by the producers. Cates was a pretty big draw at the time and people would have gone to the movie to see her. When she did her nude scenes you can see her bossum is taped over. Clearly she negotiated a no nudity contract which the producers respected. I think this was a good decision, Cates is not that good an actress but she didn't need to be for Private School. Cates had earned a bit of notoriety in "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" and she was trying to turn that into a more respectable career. Because some TV shows didn't want to use lead actresses who took their clothes off in movies, it was not unusual to see lead actresses in what were clearly sex comedies who either did not have nude scenes or used body doubles. It was about the time this movie was being filmed that Suzanne Sommers from Three's Company was claiming she had never posed nude for Playboy though she had to recant when Playboy published the pictures. Oddly enough when she left the show she was replaced by Priscilla Barnes who went through the same thing but with Penthouse Magazine. At any rate, Cates went on to do a few TV movies including "Lace" where she got to utter the line "Which one of you bitches is my mother!".

It was movies like Private School that kept a lot of old TV actors busy. When you have a reasonable budget you can get actor with a lot of experience to play the bit parts. Sylvia Kristel plays a Sex Education teacher without bringing very much to the role. Martin Mull is rather amusing as the drugstore clerk who initially confuses exactly what type of prophylactic devices Modine is looking for. Ray Walston and Fran Ryan do a great job in supporting roles. Too often these parts are played by the director's friends or whoever they can afford. Bad lines delivered by good actors are still bad lines, but when delivered by bad actors they can drag a movie down. The larger budget also helped with the cinematography. The movie looks really good with bright colors and well lit shots.

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