Vanessa

This is another 1970's "Emmanuelle"-style knock-off; a German version this time featuring Olivia Pascal as "Emmanu. . ." I mean "Vanessa". It's particularly shameless in ripping off the first French "Emmanuelle", even being set in Asia, except that the character is a virgin fresh out of Catholic boarding school rather than a married swinger. The plot involves "Vanessa" finding out that she inherited a hotel in Hong Kong and becoming involved in sexual intrigue with various horny and grasping relatives and. . . oh, who cares about the plot.

Pascal is absolutely beautiful and frequently naked. She doesn't actually ever technically lose her virginally (to a man), but she gets a sensuous Oriental massage, has an incredible lesbian scene with her "cousin", has psychic sex with an Indian swami, and is put in bondage and whipped by an "uncle". The most incredibly scene though has her dressed in her school-girl uniform and being spanked by a lesbian nun! I know this scene is sick and wrong for a lot of reasons, but good God!. . .(I guess I'm going straight to hell).

I don't want to imply in any way that this is a good movie, but for what it is it. . . well, like the nun's hand on Pacal's bare butt, it definitely leaves an impression.

This film has been compared, wrongly I think, to Emmanuelle. The seventies saw the start of the explicit erotic drama and there were quite a few examples of the genre. A number of them were centred on sweet young innocents being catapulted into a world of sex and sleaze in exotic locations; Island of 1000 Delights (also by Hubert Frank) and John D. Lamond's Felicity are two other noteworthy titles.

On being told of her father's death and that she has inherited his estate, the eponymous Vanessa (Olivia Pascal) must travel to Hong Kong to claim her inheritance. It is not that simple though. The estate is run by Adrian who believes that he should have the farm because he is the farming expert. Into this conflict is Adrian's voodoo practising girlfriend and Vanessa's uncle Kenneth (Anton Diffring) who has a disturbing hobby of sadism, and a wife who is having an affair. A friend of the family, Prince Banda can hypnotise people to do perverted things. Erotic films are not complete without a bit of lesbianism and this is provided by Jaqui (Uschi Zech) who takes more than a friendly interest in Vanessa. It all sounds a bit of a hash but Hubert Frank gets it to work very well.

The DVD on which this review is based contains an interview with Hubert Frank who says that he does a lot of improvisation while filming. This could explain a lack of continuity in parts; after Adrian tries to force himself on to Vanessa, she does not seem to be too perturbed by the experience in the following scene. A plus point is the location filming in Hong Kong. The scenes of the city and environs make good archive material. The castle at the start of the film is Schloss Kufstein in Austria. For the red-blooded male there is nudity aplenty from the ladies, so despite some misgivings it deserves 7 stars.

I like 1970's European soft-core movies so much more than what passes for that genre today. They made real movies (with a lot of nudity) which had actual plots (even if those plots were designed to lead to the nudity). Today's films are, or seem to be, just heavily edited hard-core porno films. Back then, they would photograph real live women, rather than today's cement-like mounds of silicone. Okay, about "Vanessa". The star, Olivia Pascal, was very beautiful, exuding an innocent charm that really helps a sex movie. She could have benefitted, I thought, though, from a quick armpit shave. She wasn't terribly furry there, though, so that wasn't too jarring. The film had a lot of good shots of Hong Kong. Here's the scorecard: 16 breasts, 6 butts, and 6 pubic hair shots. However, I saw the version cut down by about 15 minutes for American cable TV. (I taped this movie about 10 years ago.) I'd really like to know what all was cut. Overall, among the better films of its kind.

This film was one of the staples on cine max and it's after dark shows in the early 80's. So got to see it numerous times then, unfortunately it was before the common use of the VCR so never got a copy of it. One of the best scenes, for someone into it that is, is where Vanessa straps herself into a torture machine and gets whipped, it's short, but it's sweet and makes you wish you were there for filming on that day. Other than that scene the movie is fairly unremarkable. How ever it was worth setting an alarm clock to get up at three o'clock in the morning just to catch it. It was one of those rare occurrences when bondage was being shown on TV.

Olivia Pascal ,in her first movie role, stars as Vanessa, a Innocent doe-eyed Catholic schoolgirl who travels to Hong Kong to collect an inheritance from her deceased Uncle, but soon (while she's taking a bath, so we witness her in her full puffy-nippled glory) learns said inheritance includes a string of bordellos as well as a plantation. OK, grated the plot-line is a bit on the daft side and absolutely nothing to write home about, but thankfully this film is beautifully shot and has some true beauties in it, so I can absolutely overlook the silly lack of competent plot. As far as soft-core '70's films go I'd still ran this up there.

Eye Candy: Eve Garden, Olivia Pascal, Uschi Zech and a few extras all get fully nude Severin

My Grade: C+

DVD Extras: Interview with Director Hubert Frank and director of photography Franz Lenderle; a 16 minute silent (save for the accompanying music), nudity-filled behind the scenes featurette; & a theatrical trailer for this film