BLACK EMANUELLE

BLACK EMANUELLE

After befriending a missionary while on board a plane headed for Africa, Emanuelle (Laura Gemser) enjoys a drink with him at their destination before declining his offer for her to join him at the remote town he's bound for. Emanuelle is there on business too, only she is a photographer and has been assigned by her American magazine to meet up with Ann (Karin Schubert) to provide the shots to accompany the latter's impending article.

Emanuelle meets Ann and her husband Gianni (Angelo Infanti) at the airport and is swiftly scooted off to their fancy villa. After settling in for the afternoon, Emanuelle joins her hosts for an evening party of drinking, swimming pool shenanigans and observing the locals' tribal dances.

At the party, Emanuelle is introduced to a small group of misfits who at various points of the film are all destined to lust after her smooth dark body.

First she meets Richard (Gabriele Tinti), a stereotypical Scotsman who constantly swigs whiskey while quoting the likes of Robbie Burns. His wife Gloria (Isabelle Marchall) is an exhibitionist who thinks nothing of undressing and encouraging everyone to join her in the pool. Then there's William (Venantino Venantini), a googly-eyed eccentric who paints for a living and whom Ann compares to Salvador Dali …!

As Emanuelle observes, all these ex-patriots appear to live in very loose and open relationships. Richard very openly makes a play for her. Gianni too, doesn't seem to be able to take his away off her. No matter that their partners are by their sides at the time!

But it works both ways: the following morning, Ann takes Emanuelle with her while she fills her car up at a petrol station. That's not all that gets filled up - Ann takes the black pump attendant into his ship and gives his tool a good workout.

Perhaps it's this casual promiscuity that dictates Emanuelle's behaviour from hereon in. Or perhaps it's the fact that everyone - males and females alike - forces themselves upon her at various times, effectively leaving her with little choice but to succumb to the temptation attacking her from all angles.

Whatever the weather, Emanuelle soon warms to the concept of wanton lust. She embarks on a few escapades of her own: necking with Richard in the grass after pledging herself to married Gianni; allowing the infatuated Gianni to stumble across her in a lesbian clinch with his wife; a poolside romp with the lovely Gloria; our witless bike of a heroine learning to enjoy a hockey team gang rape.

The only person who seems to even want to rationalise Emanuelle's absence of morals in Ann's professional friend Professor Kamau (Don Powell). He offers a couple of lines of portentous dialogue that I assume are designed to offer insight, to give us something philosophical to mull over. Not that they do.

Interestingly though, Kamau is the only other black character in the film with dialogue (unless you count the chanting locals during a drum-led voodoo dance at a party one evening - Emanuelle disrobes for them too) and he's the only one who shows no signs of sexual interest in Emanuelle.

Quite what director Bitto Albertini (or Albert Thomas as the credits will have us believe) is trying to say at this point is unclear. Although the sexuality of colour and race is pondered on a few occasions: Ann seems obsessed with acquiring black lovers; Emanuelle concludes after several trysts with white folk that blacks are better in bed … although the only person she appears to truly feel for is Gianni.

Certainly, mixed race sex scenes were sure to raise a few eyebrows in the time of the film's original release (1975). Albertini drops the ball in terms of exploring this any further.

But trying to make sense of this disjointed, haphazardly edited slice of soft-focus sleaze is futile. The plot is virtually non-existent, the action is chopped up so as to render all hopes of continuity redundant, and the pacing simply never gets going.

All we're left to gleam from this otherwise vacuous production is some admittedly attractive African exterior photography, the sight of Gemser in her prime (looking arguably better here than in any other film) and an enjoyably cheesy soundtrack.

In terms of what the film's commodity is - sex - we get to see a lot of flesh (female mainly), a fair bit of bush, a little exposed labia and a couple of brief erection shots.

Elements of the rape scene have been cut by the BBFC, as has an unsimulated fight scene between a mongoose and a snake.

The film print used is generally clean with nice bright colours and minimal grain. Occasional ghosting is a minor issue, but never really distracting. The worn colour palette is surely down to the film's age and help add to its grindhouse aesthetics. Images are for the most part sharp and detailed.

The English dubbed mono soundtrack is a solid offering with no hiss or dropout to report.

A static main menu includes a scene-selection menu allowing access to the main feature via 12 chapters.

There are no extras on the disc, not even a trailer.

As the opening gambit for a projected franchise (one which we know proved to be very successful), BLACK EMANUELLE may lack sense and continuity but at least sets it's stall out in terms of sex, nudity and scenic international locations that were to become staple ingredients of the series.

Review by Stuart Willis


 
Released by Optimum Home Entertainment
Region 2 - PAL
Rated 18
Extras :
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