Emanuelle in the Country

First, let it be known that Laura Gemser's character isn't called Emanuelle in this film; it's Barbara.

Second, the film quality is extremely bad; grain and streaks throughout. The dubbing is atrocious; little effort was made to match the English soundtrack to the Italian actors' speech.

Third, the story is a throw-away about 2 rivals, the current and former mayors of a small Italian village. Gemser arrives at the film's beginning to be the village doctor.

The only reasons to sit through something this bad are the sexual scenes: 4 scenes of nudity; 2 involving fondling; 2 up-skirt; 1 simulated sex scene. Gemser is sickeningly skinny, but the other female lead is sufficiently attractive.

All-in-all, a film to be avoided; not even the cost of a rental or the time it takes to view.

Genuinely awful "comedy" entry in the Black Emanuelle series with Laura Gemser. Gemser is as lovely as ever, but the story is stupid and boring, the acting is amateurish, the dubbing uses hee-haw American accents for the rubes, and the sex is dull and not erotic.

Emanuelle is the new doctor in town, driving all the men wild, but not doing anything more sexy than showering near an open window. The townsfolk create their own romance, fumbling around in barns and boats in decidedly unsexy ways. When Emanuelle's boyfriend arrives, it starts a mistaken identity subplot that couples awkwardly with the main plot, which involves some sort of land rezoning scheme. If that sounds dumb, it is.

I give it a 2 only because no one crawls thru any ventilation ducts to escape from or gain access to a villain's lair.

The first thing you'll notice when watching Emanuelle in the Country is that is, in fact, not a part of the Black Emanuelle series at all but just a sex comedy starring Laura Gemser with the 'Emanuelle' name tacked on! I don't have a problem with that in theory; Italian cinema is literally infested with filmmakers doing things like this to sell their films, and the prospect of a sex comedy starring Laura Gemser was very welcome indeed; but unfortunately, the rip-off of Gemser's most popular and well known character is not justified as this is a poor sex comedy by anyone's standards. The title suggests that we will get to see the beautiful Emanuelle (or in this case, a doctor named Selina) in the country and that is exactly what we do get. Gemser is the new doctor in town and it's not long after getting there that she's attracting attention from all corners of the local population. The men are interested in getting her into bed, while the women are interested in the fact that all the men want to get her into bed and so set out to regain their attentions...

The version of the film that I saw was only seventy five minutes long, which means there's a good chance it's the cut version. I guess there's a chance that means that all the interesting stuff got cut out; although I somehow doubt it and think it's much more likely that this film didn't have anything much interesting about it to start with. Naturally, Laura Gemser is by far and away the best thing about the film; although her performance is not up to much. Still, as ever her body is great to look at and she does manage to just about make the film bearable. The country village she finds herself in is completely populated by fools and it's their antics that provide most of the 'laughs', although I doubt anyone will find this film funny. Maybe it's only meant to appeal to Italians, I don't know, but I didn't find anything to laugh at. It soon becomes apparent that the film isn't going to go anywhere and since it's not funny either; I did start to wonder exactly why I was watching it, until I remember that Laura Gemser is the star. Anyway, this isn't the only bad Black Emanuelle film; but it's one of them and I can't say it's worth tracking down.

I bought this one mainly because there is Gemser in it (is there any other reasons to buy movies like this???), so I didn't expect much of it. In fact, I didn't even know what kind of movie this turns out to be before I viewed it. Well, it turned out to be Italian comedy (some sort of) with sexual content in it. Much of naked ladies, softcore acts and ridiculous plot, which doesn't bother much, because nudity seems to be in a leading role in this one. So, if you like to see Gemser in the shower, in the bed (naked of course) and in various other places without her clothes this one is for you. Not so good as D'amatos Emanuelles, but still watchable.

** out of 5 as a movie, ***½ out of 5 as a Gemser-flick.

I watched this on Woodhaven Entertainment/Soft Touch Video/Intermedia Video Products's DVD, a really cheap affair (and at least I got it out of a cheap bin, where it belonged). Atrocious dubbing, so-so print quality that in some scenes it was noticeably worse.

Laura Gemser is lovely, but I couldn't watch the movie, actually. I watched the first few minutes, hit the fast forward scan button and didn't stop. The movie starts as Laura Gemser plays a doctor arriving in an Italian village. Men in the village are discussing various actresses in the movies that they find attractive, then they see her and are amazed. One man who looks at her has his hair blown out like he stuck his finger in an electrical socket. A lot of the voices are really corny; this may actually be the case with the original Italian dialog.

I can't imagine actually sitting through this movie, except maybe if a better print was used along with the original dialog and English subtitles. Something like a documentary on Italian softcore sex comedies of the 1970s would really help put it in some context as well.