Private Property abounds in inventive low-budget filmmaking while stress-testing a pulpy, dime-store premise.
83
The Film StageAmanda Waltz
The Film StageAmanda Waltz
While Private Property, with its tawdry edges and jarring, out-of-synch ADR, lacks the studio polish of its influences, it puts a wonderfully dirty spin on their voyeuristic style.
This tense and upsetting film has more psychological depth and empathy than the comparable sensationalist fare of its time, and shudder-inducing cinematic style to spare. Private Property qualifies as a genuine rediscovery.
Private Property’s vicious form of prurience may make some queasy, and is hardly the type of movie that could get made today without great backlash, but there’s definitely more going on here than mere time-capsule curiosity.
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller Seitz
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller Seitz
Private Property is a terrific example of the spell that a confident film can weave by placing a handful of troubled characters in a confined location, and in the end it does feel like as much of a tragedy as a potboiler.
75
The Seattle TimesJohn Hartl
The Seattle TimesJohn Hartl
Some scenes hold up better than others, and there’s always a question about the film’s intentions: Is this voyeurism or is it satire taking off on the Playboy era? Condemned by the Catholic Legion of Decency in 1960, Private Property is less dated than you might think.