American College

This movie is all about Cates, and Russel, but there're good amount of flesh in between too.

The movie basically is about sexual interest the boys have in the girls that are in the same private school they're in. There're very little other plots to the story.

The movie basically revolves around Christine (Phoebe Cates), and Jordan (Betsy Russel). While Cates is severely limited in her range of emotions, Russel carries most of the interesting parts of the story.

For a movie that has almost no story to it, it's sure entertaining. The movie is basically a prototypical "cute" movies of the '80s, where raw power of the '70s started to take back seat to smaller social settings, and more charming behavior of the '80s.

The movie is certainly one of the classic teen movie of all times, and is still entertaining to watch. ≈

A very raunchy and crude high school romantic sex comedy starring two luscious hotties in the immensely sweet Phoebe Cates and the wickedly memorable Betsy Russell. After seeing it, how can you forget Russell's topless horse riding scene and the saucy seduction of Matthew Modine's character. Yes… tongues would be hanging! Wait on guys… also featuring is sexpot Sylvia Kristel (well known for the 'Emmanuelle' series) as, just wait… the sex education teacher. Immature minds maybe, but you should know the target audience it's aiming for.

As for the cornball story, it's rather slight with characters coming and going doing their own things with running gags, cheesy set-ups, plenty of flowing nudity and episodic set-pieces. It's the same old high-jinx that remain amusing due to the cast committing themselves and Noel Black's direction being so spiritedly random. There are moments of awkwardness (with many daggy dialogues) and tackiness, but it was hard to keep a smile off my face. I really liked the classy Ray Walston (who a year earlier appeared in the classic teen comedy with Cates; 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High') short, but funny cameo. Matthew Modine was likable enough and Michael Zorek was humorous as a horn-dog. Kathleen Wilhoite (in her film debut) was a cheeky delight as Cates' room-mate/friend and Fran Ryan was terrific as the prudish headmistress. There's also fine additional support by Jonathan Prince, Julie Payne, Richard Stahl, Frank Aletter, Frances Bay and Karen Chase. Look out for a risible appearance by Martin Mull as drug store clerk.

Now the soundtrack is a complete blast. Catchy, hip and upbeat bubblegum sound that's always (well nearly) playing in the background with many old tunes revamped. It's like a record, with someone taking the needle off for a short break to only rip back in to it again. You got the 'Stray Cats', 'Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs' (probably of the favourite of the lot), 'Harry Nilsson', 'Rick Springfield', 'Bow-Wow-Wow' and 'Vanity 6' to name a few.

It's no classic, but a vibrantly charming 80s high school teen sex comedy outing that can't do no wrong.

Christine (the gorgeous Phoebe Cates) attends Cherryvale, a school for girls. She's dating Jim (Matthew Modine) from the local boy's school. Jim and his pals are always up to no good with many hare-brain schemes in their sexually deprived minds to infiltrate the school and see a bit of flesh. When Christine and Jim decide to go away for the weekend the real fun begins.

'Private School' is my favorite of all the teen comedies of the 80's. It's not rocket science but it's a lot of fun and worth a laugh or two. Acting: * * * (Very Good) Writing / Direction: * * (OK) Technical Design: * * (OK) Music: * * * * (Excellent)

If you liked 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High' and 'Porky's' you may enjoy this one too.

This is one of those horny teenager films that came out in the 1980's and it's easily just as dumb as most of them but looking at the young cast today this could be interpreted as a curio for this genre. Story is about horny teenagers from two prep schools where the boys and girls engage in raucous behavior from peering into windows to sneaking into showers. The girls side is Cherryvale and the boys Freemount and we see Jim Green (Matthew Modine) who dates Christine Ramsey (Phoebe Cates) and she has decided to give her virginity up and books a room in a cheap Mexican hotel.

*****SPOILER ALERT*****

Jim's friend Bubba (Michael Zorek) takes bets on the event but he also wants to try and score with the sexy Jordan (Betsy Russell) who is jealous of the fact that Christine and Jim have a solid relationship going on although he and Bubba dress up as woman and sneak into Cherryvale. The Dean is Miss Dutchbok (Fran Ryan) who tries to keep the shenanigans down to a limit but she gets caught in the back of a limo with a chauffeur (Ray Walston) with their lovemaking broadcast over an intercom system!

This film is directed by Noel Black who in 1968 made the terrific "Pretty Poison" but since then he has worked primarily in television and his feature film efforts were regulated to low budget sex romps like this. It would be easy to just unload one bad remark after another for a film like this but that would be too easy and instead I look back at this as something that was a trend and if you compare them with the few horny teen films that are made today you'll see how different they are. The abundance of nudity was actually the norm during this period and actress Betsy Russell has three nude scenes in the first 30 minutes and the scene of her riding the horse topless has gone on to be infamous. The familiar cast is also another reason to check this out and along with Modine, Cates, and Russell is Kathleen Wilhoite, Sylvia Kristel and Brinke Stevens in the shower scene. For trivia there are two things to point out like the fact that Cates sings two songs on the soundtrack and is actually pretty good and the other is that Paula Abdul was the choreographer for the outdoor calisthenics/dance sequence. I'm not really recommending this to anyone because this is one of those films that audiences can make up their minds about on their own but maybe my comments point out a few things to help others decide if they want to venture out and view this.

While a lot of the reviewers for this movie don't seem to like it, I seem to be in the minority. This movie for me has always ranked up there with other great '80s teen flicks like "Making the Grade", "Fast Times at Ridgemont High", "Sixteen Candles" and so on. The storyline is light, and there is a lot of bawdy humour, but the cast is what makes this movie. Everything from Betsy Russell riding horseback topless, to the 'mooning' at the end give this movie it's charm. I was surprised to see it still on video, and it's a treasured addition to my movie collection.