Private Parts (1972)

Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Great movie! If you want to be entertained and have a few good laughs, see this movie. The music is also very good,

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Private Parts isn't at all scary, but it's really disturbing and creepy. The intro is a film of rapidly flashing, glittering rainbow lights... well, it was 1972, maybe it's an LSD thing. The movie features a teenage girl named Cheryl as the main character; she's a runaway from Ohio who has moved out to L.A. with her best friend, Judy. After Cheryl is caught watching Judy having sex, she takes off running to find an available room at her fat Aunt Martha's decrepit motel. Aunt Martha is old and strict and has various people staying on the same floor as Martha. There's a gay priest, a drunk and next door to Cheryl's new room there's a mysterious tenant who lives in the dark, watching through holes in the walls and taking photographs. All's still for the most part going okay until people end up murdered.This is a typical 1970's movie, with hippie kids, trippy background music and various odd characters. If you like horror movies or like to laugh at the old, low-budget ones, you'd probably like this one. Some of the characters are just so strange, I haven't seen a movie as odd as this in a long time.

This movie begins with the protagonist, a teenage girl (Ayn Ruymen) being kicked out by her roommate after she spies on said roommate and her boyfriend having sex (this is perhaps a little strange since the protagonist is quite the babe while her roommate is kind of a beast even by non-Hollywood standards). Fortunately, she has an aunt nearby who operates one of those old fashion LA hotels and who gives her a room and job. Naturally, the hotel is chock-full of weirdos, and one of the weirdest is a reclusive, voyeuristic photographer with whom the aunt seems to have some strange relationship. Things start to turn around for the girl. She meets a nice guy, and also becomes romantically involved with the strange but handsome photographer. Unfortunately, though several bloody murders occur in the hotel and her former roommate, who comes looking for her, meets a sticky fate. And someone seems to be stalking the protagonist herself.Many times in the past I've heard some loutish guy say of a pretty girl that he'd like to "drink her bathwater". Well, the stalker here does a lot more than that (I couldn't really spoil it if I wanted to, but it also involves a blow-up doll and blood-filled syringe). This is Paul Bartel's first film. It was made before "Death Race 2000" or "Eating Rauol", but it holds it's own pretty well against those. It has a great creepy locale (I'd love to stay in one of these old LA hotels if there were still any around that haven't been turned into vastly overpriced B and B for tourists), and it has an effective horror/black comic atmosphere. The mystery here isn't all that surprising, but it sure is deliciously weird. Ayn Ruymen and the women who plays her aunt are both pretty good. Ruymen was very cute, and while I personally am much too cultured and refined to make crude comments about drinking her bathwater, I sure did enjoy seeing her in it.Also don't confuse this with the later Howard Stern movie of the same name. This is less famous, but actually a lot better.

I don't want to spoil this film for anyone so I'm just gonna state that it does everything right. From the script to the direction to the acting & especially the production design it is pretty damn perfect. A low budget gem with a wicked double twist ending that still knocks my socks off today. Be reminded there is very little nudity, bloodshed or harsh language here but you'll think it was full of it when the movie is over. That to me is the mark of a great thriller & that's what this is. It was ignored upon it's original release & is just being released this week on DVD. Do not miss this opportunity to watch a genre classic. I don't think it's gonna be available too long & those who know about it have more than likely pre-ordered it already. Don't wait!! This movie rocks....HARD!!!

A runaway bad-girl touches ground at an urban hellhole...a residence hotel owned and operated by her kindly, but captious and set-in-her-ways, Aunt Martha. The tenants of the hotel are a curious bunch, among them a senile old bat, a gay transvestite priest, and a handsome, mysterious photographer with a secret that's darker than pitch. An unidentified psychotic killer is active among them, as well...before long, Aunt Martha's hotel has several unexpected vacancies.A steady momentum of shocks and a vague, peculiar climax help to make PRIVATE PARTS something rather special. Splendidly perverse creative gusto which could only have escaped from the bizarre mind of the sorely missed Paul Bartel...this is a very unusual picture, infused with brooding atmosphere and deftly appointed in every aspect of it's poverty-line production.8/10