User Reviews

Spoilers herein.

Russ Meyer has just died, with accompanying hoopla about his art and influence.

Maybe. But in the realm of porn, this guy Gary Graver may be the most interesting of the lot. For those who don't know, he was Orson Welles' collaborator on his final project. Though unfinished, it promised to be every bit as advanced as 'Kane' or Welles' Othello. I've criticized Graver's exploitation of the relationship elsewhere, but in terms of his work you've got to give him credit. This is a project he wrote, directed and shot.

This film is actually pretty intelligent. Sure, it is porn. As porn, it seems comparatively pretty well intentioned. But consider it as a film that has porn in it.

'Folded' film is film that references itself. The basic technique involves a play within the play, hearkening back to 'Hamlet' where such a thing literally happens. Welles didn't invent this in film, but he is considered the master of narrative folding.

What we have here is a teenager watching a show. That show is two stewardesses next door who dress up in silly costumes for sexual romps. The teen lives with his aunt, who becomes concerned about his withdrawal and hires a tutor/psychologist. She does so on the recommendation of an ad she watches on TeeVee about sexual awareness.

While she watches, the man in the TeeVee comes through the screen and they couple. So she hires this woman 'teacher,' and leaves town. Sure enough, the teen is 'taught,' eventually joins the stewardesses, and finally has a tryst with his aunt and a curious neighbor. The fold is that he is in a porn show that watches a porn show that he then enters. So does his aunt in a parallel thread.

Think I'm seeing things? Consider this: the one and only lesson the teacher gives (short of the physical one) is to quote Shakespeare. Now, there are many, many Shakespearean passages that deal with lust, sex and romance, but this passage deals with something far deeper. It is the instruction Hamlet gives to the players of the play within the play. It is the very touchstone of folding in film. It blew my socks off.

The passage is Hamlet advising his actors to be passionate but not so much so that it seems fakey. So it is doubly apt. Shakespeare appears again as the teacher leaves. Again from Hamlet, it is the passage where he mentions his 'incest couch' which he shares with his mother. Then - back in the story - our teen indulges in incest.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

i graduated from high school in 1983 and it was during that summer just before i went off to college that i went to a party and was able to get my first taste of porn. while sitting in a room with about 30-40 other post-high school/pre-college kids of both sexes, we all watched a porno about a nerd who masturbated while looking through a telescope to spy on his neighbors having sex. at the time i thought it was one of the worst movies i ever saw as the quality of the movie just wasn't what i had come to expect from normal movies. about the only other movie i thought was worse was "the rocky horror picture show" and we all know how bad that movie was despite it's pop culture status, but after i had grown to appreciate the comedic value of "rocky horror" and the fun in going to see it and acting out its parts, i also developed a taste for the cinematic type of porn like "private teacher". no it wasn't the greatest acting in the world and yes the plots were thin and more often than not even non-existent, but after watching more porn in the privacy of my own home, i grew (pardon the pun) to appreciate porn for what it was, at least for me, as a means for stimulation and ideas to aid in my sex life. after getting married, i pretty much lost my need to watch porn and had gotten away from it for several years until just a few years ago, i moved to a section of town just down the road from a video store. after frequenting the store to rent "normal" videos for several months, one day i happened to walk by a door in the rear of the store that i had never noticed before that had a sign on it that said "adult videos" and so i went inside their "back room" and saw they had quite a collection of pornos. after looking around awhile i selected a couple videos and took them home. boy was i disappointed. these videos were nothing like the porn i had watched back in the middle 80's. they had absolutely no plot, no storyline, no acting, just sex, sex and more sex which ain't all bad, but after awhile, even watching people having sex can get boring if there's no storyline to pique your interest beyond all the sex. plus, the one thing i noticed more than any other was the fact that all the girls in these movies were just that, girls, barely 18 or 19 and not one mature woman among them. they all had tattoos and body piercings with shaved pubic areas that just don't do anything for me whatsoever. needless to say, i took the movies back and didn't rent another one for quite awhile until one day, i finally broke down and bought a computer, got hooked up to the internet and discovered a whole new world with internet porn. one day, i just happened to be browsing a site that featured "vintage porn" and one of the titles available, as luck would have it was "private teacher". of course i just had to buy it and my life hasn't been the same ever since. hee-hee!!! no but seriously though, this movie had everything a good porn movie should have, of course there are some excellent sex scenes, but there's also some good acting from honey wilder as aunt diane who shows real concern for her nephew jimmy played by tom byron. it has a plot and character development when you learn that jimmy lives with his aunt because her sister and his mother had died and she took him into her home then and so you understand why he was such a recluse and resorted to spying on the neighbors, 2 stewardesses who have a kinky streak to their variety of sex games they like to play with their male consorts. there is some humor and comedic themes, especially the scene where the TV announcer comes right out of the TV and gives aunt diane an actual demonstration of having sex and then returns in a later role as a masseuse where they experience deja vu all over again. hee-hee!!! the scenes between the teacher (kay parker) and jimmy are every school boy's fantasy come to life and the resulting confidence that jimmy develops afterwards leads him to venture over to the neighbors' house where he engages in some sex play with the stewardesses himself only to fall asleep which makes aunt diane go looking for him. it's funny how he makes a complete 180 whereas before she couldn't get him out of the house, now she can't get him to come home. then she has her friend marsha, marsha, marsha help her find him and when they do find him, he's got "morning wood" and it is absolutely hilarious to watch marsha try to put it back inside his pants. at first aunt diane is upset, but then after watching what goes on between marsha and jimmy, she can't help but get turned on and join in the fun. all in all, this is probably my all-time favorite porno. i highly recommend it.