Hausaufgaben

This movie was billed as the next best thing to "Private Lessons". The movie was marketed on the misperceived sex goddess status of Joan Collins. She never goes Mary Kay LeTourneau. All you get to see is a really weak teen soap opera. My sister, her fiancé,and I went to this movie and left it with the same reaction we had to Porkies; a triumph of marketing for not a lot of movie. Joan Collins does some flashbacks of her youth and then she was an active participant in romance; it was a low level rip off of the Graduate. The teen band sequence was a bad version of the Mickey Rooney/Judy Garland OK kids, let's put on a show. The end was not even very climactic; the two male leads walking out of a movie theater and talking of trying to make a movie just like when they started a band.

My review was written in August 1982 after a Times Square screening.

"Homework" is a very poorly-made sex comedy about a high school boy's problems in losing his virginity. Filmed circa 1979 with the alternate title "Growing Pains", picture predates Jensen Farley's hit pickup "Private Lessons", but offers exploitation possibilities as a followup release.

Evidencing plentiful post-production doctoring (mainly in the form of added nude scenes), "Homework" is truly a mixed bag, alternating dead-serious (bordering on pathos at times) depictions of the problems young teen Tommy (Michael Morgan) with poor-taste gags and softcore sex. Episodic screenplay also covers his pals' antics: Ralph (Lanny Horn) with a crush on the cute substitute French teacher (Lee Purcell); g.f. Sheila (Erin Donovan) obsessed with swim team practice and Lisa (Shell Kepler) hoping to use their vocal group The Flies as a stepping stone.

Plot payoff has Sheila's mom Diana (Joan Collins) lusting after young Tommy and finally introducing him to sex (with the aid of poorly matched double Joy Michael, who also portrays Diana at age 16 in several crudely inserted flashback scenes).

"Homework" ironically also strikes a blow against serious-minded efforts in the exploitation field. While out-and-out silly and frivolous teen pics are easy to watch (viz., the many American International and Crown International hits of the last two decades), this film's serious scenes clash with viewer's expectations and the rest of the package. It is dreary and tedious to see Tommy pouring his problems out to school psychologist Dr. Delingua (Carrie Snodgress) or traipse around the seamy Sunset Strip, forlorn amidst a barrage of sexual enticements. Instead of being funny, his bed scene of impotency with a hooker is distasteful. Documentary-trained lighting cameraman Paul Goldsmith stresses source lighting for a "realistic" look, which runs counter to the comedy and results in dim, ugly interiors.

Well-known adult cast plays second-fiddle to the kids, with Collins a steady trouper even when assigned to staring at a kid's jeans-clad crotch for a whole scene. Purcell is winning as the nervous teacher, though her role and that of the psychologist played by Snodgress are peripheral. Betty Thomas (later of "Hill St. Blues") has a ten-second bit part as rock star Wings Hauser's secretary. Biggest laughs of the film go to Mel ("Little Shop of Horrors") Welles and Beverly Todd, as doctor and clinic receptionist.

I had never heard about this 1982 movie titled "Homework", from director James Beshears, prior to stumbling upon it by random chance here in 2025. And with it being a movie that I had never seen before, of course I opted to check it out and give it a fair chance.

The storyline in the movie, as written by Maurice Peterson and Don Safran, failed to entertain me. The movie felt insanely random and erratic, as the narrative was all over the place, yet nowhere all at once.

But I suppose that fans of Joan Collins might enjoy this movie, in some odd and bizarre way, as you get to see her without a top.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with Joan Collins and Wings Hauser. The acting performances in the movie were fair. The acting performances in the movie were fair, despite the fact that the storyline was rubbish.

The music in the movie was insanely annoying to listen to.

This is definitely not a movie that I would recommend you to waste 89 minutes on watching.

My rating of director James Beshears's 1982 movie "Homework" lands on a generous two out of ten stars.

A young man sits doing his math homework. He pulls out a porno mag and begins to fantasize about the model in the magazine being photographed by some other guy. This would make sense if he were gay, and wants to become a fashion photographer. But he is supposed to be straight. If the picture led him to fantasize, wouldn't the fantasy be sexual somehow?

The boy has a more interesting fantasy a little bit later, where he imagines himself comatose in hospital due to lack of sex, and has two sexy nurses, one of whom bares her breasts.

The movie appears to have a better budget than most '80s teen sex comedies. It features more locations and actors, though no one makes any impression.

I believe the movie is supposed to be about a young man, luckless in sex, being seduced by Joan Collins. She is barely in it, and all her scenes seem separate from the rest of the movie. No wonder - according to Wikipedia, they were filmed two years apart from the rest of the "movie". The whole thing has the same disconnected feeling.

There is a smoking hot French teacher, who should have been the one to seduce the protagonist - not Collins. In one bizarre scene, she offers to tutor one of the other kids, and he comes to her house and talks to her in fluent French, impressing her. She speaks English, presumably because the actress couldn't fake it in French. Why didn't they just make her a science teacher or something?

Google offers some hints about Collins' lack of real participation: she filmed her part two years before the rest, in a minor role, and the filmmakers edited the movie - and marketed it - to make it look like she played a main role. She sued them, particularly for using a body double in a later scene to make it look like she got naked.

B-movie god Wings Hauser makes an appearance at the halfway mark. He apparently plays some kind of rock star. What is he doing in this movie?

There are also scenes with an African American family that don't seem related to the movie's main story, if you can really say it has one.

The kid speaking French to his teacher is apparently, actually, French. I don't know why they didn't introduce that earlier. This movie is very confusing.

The protagonist finally meets Collins with only fifteen minutes left to go. So much for the whole "virginal loser seduced by sexy Dame" plotline.

And then the movie ends, without having resolved, or even really established, anything.

Thank god it's over.

It wasn't perfect, and that's why it's so cool. Lots of emotion, and you can tell it's from a true story. And catch Betty Thomas! I saw it on Showtime a long time ago but I just rented it and it really brought back memories. Joan Collins' role is short but bitchin.