Emanuelle negra No. 1

The main reason to check this one out is to watch Laura Gemser in all her glory.

That's reason enough for me.

She heads to Africa as guests of another rich guy that seems to be all over these films. Huge mansion near the jungle. Hunters staying around for parties when they aren't out hunting zebras. And said parties becoming drunken orgies.

All the high society types in the Emanuelle films seem to have out of control fetishes. And Emanuelle beds most of them.

Joe D'Amato did NOT direct this one. He just ripped it off and used the same cast(s). And did anyone notice the 'subliminal' sexual images at the gas station? And why did most of the men stay dressed during the sex scenes?

Coherence? Hardly any. BUT GODDESS GEMSER IS BEAUTIFUL.

Would it be splitting hairs to point out that the Emanuelle in question is not "black" but Indonesian? I suppose it's no more silly or abstract than LL Cool J being Robin Williams' full-blood brother ("Toys"). Sumptuous cinematography, creative carnality, and the gorgeous (Laura) Gemser, pre-empt all political incorrectness. Pedophiliac permutations "pop up" (when a 12-year-old native boy eagerly presents Emanuelle with a phallic "good luck" icon and says "I give it to you!") and are "purged" and pacified when, a short time later, she drinks a strange potion at a ceremony, copulates on the ground with an anonymous, young tribal dancer (in full view of villagers and friends), and realizes she has had meaningless sex (well, duh!). Whatever happened to Laura Gemser's brief foray into straight cinema when she starred with Michael Landon in a 1983 made-for-tv movie? I give this sex-seared safari seven sharp spears, six shrunken skulls, five fat ferrets, and a porn queen in a pear tree!

Laura Gemser is one of the best actresses in the Emmanuelle movies. She has a sure, sexy, friendly, erotic, girl that you could meet & not be snubbed by attitude that puts her over the line in my opinion. She gets in these situations with ease & is not only good to look at, but makes her role believable. Her sex scenes are enough to melt the heart of a statue. The story line is ok, the soundtrack is good, the acting is fair, but Laura makes the movie what it is, kind of like how Jack Nicholson can steal the movies he acts in.

Laura Gemser plays a magazine photographer who is sent to Africa for a photo shoot. There she is met by a couple and other swinging couples. They all stay at this huge, very touristy hotel with a gigantic swimming pool. One night they have a pool party complete with "real live" native dancers. It's very un-politically correct and very kitschy. Later, Emanuelle finally has her photo shoot, which turns out to be in one of those drive-through, stay-in-your-car safaris (albeit the photography is gorgeous). Throughout the film, Emanuelle is going after every man she meets. The photography is very well done in this film. There are scenes with cascading waterfalls, galloping giraffes and ancient ruins. The film is worth seeing for the soundtrack by Nico Fidenco alone.

The first of many Emanuelle (spelt with only one 'm') films, this Italian rip-off of the famous French sex classic Emmanuelle (two 'm's) sees its sultry star Laura Gemser as journalist/photographer Mae Jordan (known professionally as—you guessed it—Emanuelle), who is in Africa for her latest assignment. Her employers are married couple Ann and Gianni Danieli (Karin Schubert and Angelo Infanti), who supposedly want our sexy snapper to capture shots of African ruins, but seem more interested in getting her into bed (and who can really blame them? The lovely lens-woman is gorgeous and gagging for it!).

What follows is a string of silly soft-core couplings with Gemser and her free-loving associates getting busy with each other at every available opportunity; these are interspersed by some really dull exposition about Ann and Gianni's marital troubles (which serves as the basis for the weak plot), some non-sexual nudity including a hilarious photographic session with Ann going back to nature (pretending to be a gazelle!), plus a little bit of 'padding' in the form of National Geographic style wild-life footage.

Director Bitto Albertini's handling of his material is, for the most part, fairly routine, although he does excel when it comes to delivering very unsubtle suggestive imagery: in particular, Ann's sex scene with a garage mechanic is made all the more entertaining by the juxtaposition of shots of a petrol nozzle filling up a car, whilst Emanuelle's naughty encounter with a hockey team whilst on a train is inter-cut with the locomotive's piston pumping rapidly in and out. Hardly a stroke of genius, but very funny!

Later entries in the series, helmed by sleaze-king Joe D'amato, combined Genser's soft-core romping with other exploitation sub-genres, making for more satisfying films as a whole. This one, however, is content to simply show as much naked flesh as possible without ever crossing the line into hard-core territory. It's just about worth catching if you're a big fan of Ms. Gemser and/or very trashy films in general, but probably of little interest to anyone else.