L'école du sexe

Dastardly Giles Wingate (Derek Aylward) sets up a finishing school for girls at his large English country manor, teaching delinquent sexy young girls how to financially extort rich men. I am a fan of the horror movies of British cult director Pete Walker so when 88 Films released a box set of his sex movies on a whim I bought a copy. I decided to start with School For Sex, oh dear, I was not impressed. This movie now looks and sounds very dated with words such as "bird", "wench" and "crumpet" used to describe women, and there is no sexual equality here - women are seen stark naked but the men are always at least partially clothed. Early on there is a flashback scene to when Giles was 21 but Aylwood would have been 46 at the time! This is meant to be a comedy but I didn't find it very funny. Don't bother watching the prudish British release, instead go for the Continental version which has far more nudity. Apart from seeing a few nice "birds" I did enjoy looking at the old motor vehicles, most of which would have been built in Britain before the death of the UK motor industry.

Pete Walker was an exploitation filmmaker who made some ridiculous, entertaining flicks in the '70s, such as "The Flesh and Blood Show" and "Schizo". These were horror movies with an abundance of nudity.

He got his start in pure sexploitation, like the inexplicable "For Men Only", and "School for Sex", his second movie, which was a surprise hit in its native Britain.

The movie opens with a guy in court. Apparently he is in trouble with the law. Then we are shown the school of sex, with some girls in skimpy French maid type outfits.

There is a loquacious voiceover which is really just a distraction. When your narrator has verbal diarrheoa, you tend to stop listening and the voice becomes like white noise.

We are actually still in the court room. It appears the lawyer is detailing the protagonist's misbehaviour. The next scene is even more confusing: the guy with a woman in colour while black-and-white and possibly silent footage is intercut, because the woman is an actress, or something.

The theme seems to be that all the women we see the guy with fleeced him. He's some kind of aristocrat - Lord Wingate.

Some lady - perhaps an opposing solicitor - stands up to raise her objections about Wingate and he smiles and winks at her, briefly seeing through her clothing, "Immoral Mister Teas" style - and, charmed by the wink, she just sits down again. Uh huh. This Wingate ain't even that much to look at.

As you expect from sexploitation, the movie really doesn't skimp on nudity, showing bare breasts and pubic hair at only about five minutes in, and then barely letting a minute pass without showing more. After the montage of scenes showing Wingate's dalliance with topless and occasionally bottomless women, we move out of the courthouse and straight into a strip show.

And one thing that you can say for these movies is that the women are beautiful.

Wingate realises that men, no matter how wealthy and sensible, all have a weakness for "crumpet", ie. sex.

Wingate apparently intends to turn his old homestead into the titular "School for Sex", with the help of Fred, an elderly butler.

He is visited by an apparently alcoholic duchess who downs a brandy in one shot.

Elsewhere, four sexy ladies are travelling in the back of a van while a handsome young man hides in the back with them. He tells them to strip, which they do, to the consternation of the guy driving. A policeman happens upon them and they con their way into Wingate Manor. I didn't really understand that bit.

Then we see another pretty lady, older than the other ones so far, apparently being stalked by a guy with thinning red hair. This would be played for scares if it were made today. Here, it is depicted as though it were amusing.

The two both hide out at Wingate manor, where the lord employs the stalker, and doesn't even ask him what he's doing in his house.

The four girls from before arrive in the van, still attired in their tacky '60s underwear.

The action cuts to a man and woman apparently about to have sex on the manor grounds where they are discovered. The woman is naked, but surprisingly, Walker doesn't give us a good look.

We then get some scenes that show the "school of sex" in action. Women are shown being taught how to get a man's attention in one scene, and then how to give a massage in another - with Wingate as the model to be worked on.

Inexplicably, the stalker from before is shown giving the women calisthenics lessons, which they do wearing bikinis that do not cover their butt cracks.

I say it is inexplicable, because I'm not sure why the stalker would be tasked with this mission, or any other. A copper spies on them from the bushes, and is informed by some other guy that Wingate is up to no good and he's going to get to the bottom of it.

With these scenes, the movie surprisingly starts to limit the amount of nudity, though we still get beautiful girls, scantily clad.

The movie seriously lulls with some insignificant rubbish about coppers and townfolk finding out about the illegal goings on at the innocuously named School for Sex. They bust in on a ton of near-naked girls.

And then the movie's over, with yet another court scene.

I would not recommend sitting through "School for Sex" as I have just done. It does have some hot girls in it, but it is not erotic, and the nudity isn't shown very well after that first strip scene. Watch clips of it on Ancensored or YouTube, but don't waste your time watching the whole thing.

Saw this on an obscure British TV channel, that shows some old TV, and a few films of this type, a genre sometimes called 'sexploitation', from the 60s or 70s, designed to capture lads at the end of a Friday or Sat night out, pub, perhaps a curry, and a raunchy film -- maybe the film then a curry?

And this is really the MOST AWFUL tosh! A few such films had a bit of merit, told tongue in cheek, the 'Confessions of' series perhaps, but this has nothing of note, except perhaps the 2nd recorded appearance of Francoise Pascal?

I had to give it one (of 10) as IMDB doesn't permit anything lower, I'd have rated it approx -37 for a more accurate assessment?! A couple of reviews give it EIGHT out of ten, several scored it as a 'six'. WHAT??? How on earth then do they assess actual films that deserve proper scoring, say, Casablanca, 12 Angry Men, Roman Holiday, El Cid, The Odd Couple, Thelma & Louise, Chinatown, etc etc??

The 'story' has been described in a few reviews, the acting is dire throughout, though Derek Aylward does appear a suitably smooth bounder in the lead.

The rest have to do their best not to bump into the furniture, or each other, a village bobby might have failed an audition to be in Benny Hill, perhaps? Even the girls - the whole point of the film -- are a pretty ordinary bunch, not even much in the way of a big chest, though we have to credit Francoise Pascal, just her second film, and even in this dross managed to get noticed for a career in films and TV -- though her partner being a film star may have helped?!

I think there was some 'full frontal nudity' near the start, but I did nod off at times. The films at that time - of this type - used to love a bit of pubic hair, to keep the drunks slightly amused, and give the dirty mac brigade something to hope for later on? But there were no jokes, no great erotic appeal, nothing of note.

I suppose I could justify my 'one' rating, a mark for me, as I judged that the outdoor scenes looked like they'd been shot in one of the pretty villages in E Sussex or W Kent, and so it transpired, apparently Robertsbridge had been used to give the locals a little to chat about in shops and the pub. Hopefully any that saw the movie weren't too disappointed?!

1st watched 10/21/2022 - (Dir-Pete Walker): *not original Mono* Early British sex-ploitation is barely watcheable for the full 80 minutes not because it isn't titillating - but because it gets boring. It's the story of a well-to-do man who keeps skirting the law despite his guilt as he only gets a suspension for money laundering. He than decides to start a supposed sex-ed school disguised as a finishing school for girls to get money back from wrongs against him by his many wives. It's portrayed as more of a way to tease older rich men with some physical therapy done in underwear, primarily for the audience. The first group bring great results somehow, but it finally catches up to them as the police are keeping their eye on things. It's amazing how this movie got an "X" rating from the British censors when it was released, but would definetly only get an "R" rating, at least in America today. The writer/director & producer was supposedly trying to make money off the lightening of restrictions in British cinema, but it definetly doesn't stand up in today's world. A very silly premise with a lot of teasing, but not enough to keep our modern folks interested, and the bottom-line it's also very poor filmmaking with some scenes that don't even make any sense. This is kind of like a slightly more raunchy extended Benny Hill episode, but not as funny.

"School for Sex" another entry from Paul Walker is a little bit more blunt provocative and open as far as showing skin. Still it's a joy even though the plot might be a little lame still it entertains and each involved both the pretty women and rich playboys learn lessons in the end. After a rich playboy is in court for fraud upon getting away he decides to open up a house to teach girls new manners and how to go for rich men and learn how to control. And plenty of hot scenes are shown of girls wearing sexy colored bras and nudity and love scenes push it a little for a British film. Thru it all the fun and erotic tease games all come to an end still this picture entertained in a sexy and unique manner.