Theatrical Release Date:September 1972 Release Date:October 4, 2005 Availability:Usually ships in 1-2 business days Shipping:Expedited shipping available Shipping:International shipping available Condition:New! Mint in case. Factory sealed. Cut on barcode.
Editorial Reviews:
Product Description Check out who's checked in at the musty old King Edward Hotel in a seedy section of L.A.: Cheryl a runaway teen who hopes to piece her life together. Little does she know that someone at the hotel has a nasty little penchant for chopping people into pieces. Welcome happy campers to one of the screen's most bizarre works of camp filmmaking. Paul Bartel (Eating Raoul Lust in the Dust) directs guiding this loopy foray "with the fervor of a carny barker at a freak show" (Jay Cocks Time). Murder fetishism a dotty aunt a sham clergyman corny cops a Peeping Tom and a guy who's a girl who goes nite-nite with a blow-up doll that has a photo of Cheryl's face taped to it - they're among the feverish parts of Private Parts. If you're without reservations drop by the hotel.Running Time: 85 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY UPC: 012569675940
Unfamiliar and anxiousOctober 2, 2008 This is a bizarre one. Somewhere in here is a very disturbing, very good movie. The traces of it are so strong, it must have just left the room, and it's almost as though if we hurried we could catch it. But we got distracted in this room full of perversities that we're stuck here only with a sickening sensation deep in our stomach. In other words, I can't really tell if this movie was successful at what it was trying to do or not. The back of the DVD box promised "camp", but there's something different going on here.
Basically, this movie fits smack-dab in the middle of Psycho and Peeping Tom conceptually. A sexually frustrated young woman, escaping from her abusive roommate, goes to stay in her aunt's hotel. This hotel is filled with various unsettling characters, including a gay priest, a half-dead alcoholic, and a obsessed photographer. It's a Wonderland without an Alice--and quite literally, a character named Alice is alluded to, a woman who inhabited the hotel but is already dead. Without Alice we're given Cheryl as our protagonist, but herein lies a problem: Cheryl is just about as insane and perverse as the other people in the hotel are, meaning there's very little real sanity to be gleaned from this movie.
Now, there's this whole theory about storytelling that says you can only have a sane person in insane situations or insane person in sane situations, but not both. I'm not too sure I really agree with that philosophy, but this movie makes a good case-study for comparison. The thing is, Cheryl is a believable character by all means--remember that one woman who married the stalker who almost killed her? These things do happen. But she's NOT relatable, and so its hard to really understand what we're supposed to get from this movie. Her relationship with George is disturbing, sure, but to what purpose? And I'm not really getting the point of the transgendered twist.
I think the filmmakers had watched precisely those movies Psycho and Peeping Tom, along with other sexploitation and horror movies of the time, and decided to make their own exploration into sexual anxiety. However, I'm not entirely sure what they were to have discovered and revealed, here. There is, however, the lingering sensation that they were attempting SOMETHING. At any rate, neither am I too sure I want to know what that is, either.
--PolarisDiB
I'M GETTING A TATTOO OF THIS MOVIEJune 16, 2008 Favorite film of all time. Yep. It is. I can't say enough about it. I first saw it a few years back as a result of me buying it because it looked interesting and weird. After the first time I saw it, I knew that was it. This is truly an awesome film. Seedy, not sure if you should laugh or be scared or be disturbed or all of the above, very unnerving at times, very interesting at times, very artsy at times, very "real?" at times, sensual, psycho, violent, sexy, mysterious, 42nd street seedy, hotel, very bizarre characters, SHOCKING ending, amazing score. I am in the process currently of making a documentary on this film and am trying to get into touch with the cast (that's still alive!). If you look them up, you'll see that most of them haven't been acting in a long time. So much mystery surrounds this film. Even the writers haven't written anything since it. And Paul Bartel (director) is now dead. HERE'S A SECRET ABOUT GETTING THE SCORE: look under Hugo Friedhoffer and it will be a double movie score cd. or you can get it on vinyl used. look for it on amazon too. amazing. If any of you have any other information on this film, please let me know asap. I even rented out a theater to screen it a couple months ago!
bye
Not the Howard Stern movie.April 27, 2008 Sex with blow up dolls filled with water(that lead to murder) Fantastico! Young girl lost in life looking for her place leads her to a hotel filled with weirdos,just genius.
Artsy and BizarreJune 20, 2007 Plot: Teenage runaway Cheryl moves out of her best friends place after being caught 'spying' on her friend and boyfriend. She heads for Downtown La to her Aunt Marthas Old Hotel. After talking to her a little she says she can stay but she has to not get too involved with the guests in the hotel. On the way up to her room some good looking guy is standing there who happens to be 'George', for the time being the viewer and Cheryl just know hes a photographer, just one of the tenants yet identity is still kind of unknown,. Soon someone starts leaving weird notes and stories in her room, lingerie, etc .. she goes investigating and from there it just gets weirder and weirder.. it involves a disapearance of a model named 'Alice', George, a blow up doll and blood in a needle 'really odd' part and then the outrageous ending..It could have been somewhat better but overall it was a pretty good movie. The only part i was a little confused and disapointed on was the ending.
This is one of those movies where you wont forget it. The weirdness and the odd imagery is something that will stick in your head. It feels dirty, bleak and just morbid. George's room is something else. The way he tries to interact with women and the way he lets it out is so bizarre youre almost like what the hell was that? I have to say the 'suprise ending' was really a suprise considering the way George looked. Ive never seen something so bizarre. Psycho with a twist. Id give this 3.5-4 stars.
Pleasant SurpriseMay 21, 2006 3 out of 4 found this review helpful
Young runaway, Cheryl seeks refuge in her prudish aunt's highly peculiar San Francisco hotel, and in spite of her aunt's warnings, she soon finds herself swept up in the perversions of it's sorted clientele.
Though a tad more conventional (and polished), Bartel's work usually fits in comfortably with that of Paul Morrissey and John Water's. I found the quirky nature of Private Parts pretty captivating, and Bartel manages to portray some fairly off-color goings on, which in more mean spirited, or less skilled hands would have been hard to sit through.
You have to hand it to Warner for putting the late Paul Bartel's Private Parts out on DVD (and a nice looking DVD at that). It's by no means a "big" cult favorite, but a pleasantly surprising little cult favorite that might of easily have languished in vault. I don't know what made them choose it, but I'm glad they did.
