Private Parts (1972)

Director: Paul Bartel

Writers: Philip Kearney, Les Rendelstein

Composer: Hugo Friedhofer

Starring: Ayn Ruymen, Lucille Benson, John Ventantonio, Laurie Main, Stanley Livingston, Charles Woolf, Ann Gibbs

More Info: IMDB

Tagline: A most bizarre voyage into the psycho sexual!

Plot: Curious teenager Cheryl moves into her Aunt Martha's skid-row hotel in downtown L.A.. The lodgers are odd. Cheryl wants nothing more than to be treated as an adult/woman and finds that one of the lodgers, George the photographer, will do just that. She likes that he spies on her while she baths. Will she end up dead like some that came before her? Hmmmm.

My Rating: 6/10

Would I watch it again? No. I liked it but there's no need to see it again.

I had some expectation going into this one since it's Bartel's (Deathrace 2000) first movie. I guess I just expected more. The set-up is great. In the first 5 minutes you discover all you need to know about Cheryl and where that's probably going to lead her. This is a good thing. Bartel then spends the rest of the film showing us the other tenants of the hotel and how they fit into the big picture. They're the fun ones, including Aunt Martha who's obsessed with the funerals of strangers. We know George is bad news (they all are to a point) and that something will happen in the last 10 minutes that might make Cheryl scream. Giggity. The pacing is fine, if sometimes slow, and the camera work is nicely composed. I just couldn't quite get into the film even though I was diggin' what I was seeing; it's just that it wasn't a whole heck of a lot. The big surprise at the end was pretty cool but you could sorta see it coming. Giggity. It's worth a look. You will recognize a few faces. Lucille Benson (Aunt Martha) showed up in Spielberg's DUEL and 1941 (gas station attendant) and Stanley "hey, look, it's Chip from My Three Sons" Livingston has a pretty good part as Cheryl's teen love interest. Come for the curiosity. Stay for the nudity. Very nice...