Emmanuelle

 

I grew up in Paris – at least from age 10 to 21, with 17-21 spent mostly at college.  Of course this was the time I started getting interested in sex.  And of course, the Emmanuelle films were there in Paris... but for some reason I never saw any of them in the movie theater then, although they personified SEX in Paris.

   Years later I was working in my own law office, representing Vietnamese clients.   This meant having Vietnamese secretaries.  Of course, race + language + culture + age = incompatible, plus I was never very attracted to Asian girls anyway, so the lack of interest was mutual, with two exceptions: Thao & Jennifer.  I’ll keep Thao down to just her name, and Jennifer (1/4 Vietnamese) is only relevant here because she persuaded me to buy the first 3 Emmanuelle films on DVD.  I never watched them with her, though I did get some enjoyment from watching them with a woman from Manila...which is a different story.  Anyhow.

   These films (Emmanuelle with two M’s) are French films, originally featuring Sylvia Kristel, and coming out in the early 70s.  I’ve seen about 60% of them by now, and have exhausted the supply available from Netflix.  Given their extremely inconsistent quality, buying them outright, while possible, is definitely not advisable.  I’ll comment on the ones I’ve seen, recognizing that this is by no means all of the films.   With the exception of a few hardcore films, most of these are softcore, with the erotic element varying from mere full frontal nudity, from badly imitated sex, to well-imitated softcore sex.  60% of the sex is lesbian, and fortunately 0% is guy-on-guy.  The other 40% is normal, garden-variety man and women sex.

       The first three films are the best.  They have some semblence of a plot, decent (if fake) sex, and are sensual enough to be enjoyable.  They take place in Bangkok, Hong Kong, and Seychelles.  Of these, I like the second one by far the most.

            Like James Bond, the character changes actresses several times – to me, Silvia Kristel is the Sean Connery of the role, aside from Laura Gemser (above right, described below).

       Emmanuelle 5.  Now we have Monique Gabrielle, an American, suddenly dropped into the role.  Is she French?  Is she American?  WTF??  I am not a film critic or aficionado, but even I cringe at the atrocious acting here (I could do better than these morons).  The plot is incredibly stupid - something involving models kidnapped by an eccentric Sikh guy with a private army who look like NVA soldiers.  Huh? She also has an American lover, some rich nerdy guy who looks like the nerd guy in “Riptide” (Murray).
            By the way, I can’t figure out the fake sex.   The couple is clearly completely naked.  They are simulating sex, on screen.  Why not have real sex?  Is it so, if any friend or relative sees the movie, they can plausibly deny that it was real sex on screen and that they aren’t doing “hardcore porn”?  Oh, it was tasteful.  Err, OK.  Dad to Mom, watching their daughter in “Emmanuelle 7”: “It’s OK,dear.  You can clearly see they’re not really having sex.”

       Emmanuelle 6 (w/Natalie Uher)  Very softcore, with truly the supremely crappiest acting of all of them so far.  Too stupid to even be erotic.  An incredibly lame plot about her losing her memory and getting it back, something about a trip of a bunch of models sold into slavery in Ecuador or somewhere like that.  ZZZ.

       Emmanuelle's Intimate Encounters.  Here she’s American again, and runs into a couple that has perfected body-mind-exchange technology (like “The Thing on the Doorstep” by H.P. Lovecraft).  Finally, one of the women in the film has a C cup bust, but she’s stuck in a wheelchair.  Actually one of the sexier ones, even if it’s STILL incredibly stupid.  This one is fairly recent (2000) and features the Las Vegas I’m familiar with.

       Emmanuelle in Rio.  I had to get this one.  Not that great, not that bad either, fortunately no stupid plot or abysmal acting (and no cannibals).  Fairly harmless and gives us a good view of Rio and some softcore sex.   Yet again, it’s some actress who bears no resemblence to Sylvia Kristel.  The only consistent element has to be “you’re skinny?  You have no boobs?  You can’t act?  Somewhat pretty? Ok, you got the role.”

       Laure (blonde, French).  Despite the name, this is nominally an Emmanuelle film.  The actress is some blonde chick, completely forgettable plot.

   Emanuelle (Laura Gemser, "Black Emanuelle").  Hardly surprisingly, the Emmanuelle films inspired a second series of ripoff films, made in Italy, and they skirted the copyright issue by spelling the name with only one M (like we were really paying attention).  Strangely, some of these are actually BETTER than the official ones, and unlike those, the character is consistently played by Laura Gemser, of Indonesian descent.  She is definitely smoking, more so than even Silvia Kristel.  For some reason the baseline plot has her as some sort of investigative journalist, like a hot, female Tintin, going after bad guys around the world and having lots of sex in the process (unlike Tintin, of course).

       Emanuelle in Bangkok.  Still soft-core and still more lesbian sex than straight sex (thank God, though, no man-on-man).

       Emanuelle on Taboo Island.  A mysterious stranger is marooned on an island, inhabited only by an old man (who resembles, in appearance and mannerism, Donald Sutherland), an attractive woman (Gemser) and her “husband”.  The man gradually learns to take care of himself and falls in love with Emanuelle.  Eventually he ends up at odds with the old man, but the husband is oddly acquiescent with their relationship.  The sex is mild, modest, and simulated.  She’s naked fairly often.  Mildly entertaining, but clearly not one of the best.

       Emanuelle: Queen of the Desert.  NO sex, only a modest amount of nudity from Gemser, who isn’t even the central character of the story, which focuses on a small band of mercenaries (complete with AK-47s and various accents) on the run after an assassination job ended and the “agency” didn’t pick them up.  It looks like they took a movie they were going to make anyway that had a seductive female character, and decided to pimp it out as an Emanuelle film.  Emanuelle turns out to be the daughter of a man they killed, and whose sister they raped, back for revenge against the group.  She manipulates them into killing each other out of jealousy for her.  Actually not a bad film in its own right, and it has a coherent plot; it just doesn’t fit with the overall trend of these movies, which are erotic adventures, not action flicks with some nudity.

     Emanuelle in America.  Unlike “Desert” and “Taboo Island” this is fairly hardcore.  Unfortunately the plot has her investigating a ring of snuff movie makers, so there we have to constantly see a movie of various women tortured as well as raped.  The torture part is twisted beyond belief, clearly pandering to sickos with a fetish for that kind of thing.  The two cancel each other out.

     Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals.  Even worse than “America.”  Here we have cannibals who literally eat people alive.  I had to stop the movie 2/3 through and simply return to Netflix.  It was beyond nasty.

     Sister Emanuelle.  Anyhow, in this film she’s a NUN, who escorts a very naughty girl, Monica, to a convent for wayward girls.  Fortunately some rogue Red Brigade guy invades the plot, otherwise there would be no male-female sex in the whole film.  The ending is pretty surprising.

      Emanuelle Around the World. Finally they hit the right balance!  This one is still kind of hardcore with lots of nudity (and the women aren’t these 00’s porn stars constantly shaved, they look like normal, but attractive women) but without the nasty violence of “Emanuelle in America” and “Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals”.  The nastiest it gets here is simulated rape, but at least it’s sex rape and doesn’t involve blood and torture.  Oh, and there’s a plot somewhere in here: she’s investigating a sex slavery ring around the world.