Emmanuelle in Soho

The original "Emmanuelle" from 1974 gave rise to six official sequels, but it also gave rise to a number of unofficial rip-off copies which had little in common with the original except that they were softcore sex films with a main character named Emmanuelle, although the spelling of the name was sometimes altered, apparently for copyright reasons. (As in "Carry On Emmannuelle", or the "Black Emanuelle" series). "Emmanuelle in Soho" was British film from 1981 that kept the original spelling. The relevance of the title is that in the sixties and seventies Soho, a district of central London, had the reputation of being the centre of the capital's sex industry, although the area was to be cleaned up in the eighties.

The original Emmanuelle was the wife of a French diplomat. Her namesake in this film is a Soho stripper, and presumably British even though "Emmanuelle" is a Christian name hardly ever used on this side of the Channel. The original idea was for the character to be played by Mary Millington, the nearest thing Britain ever produced to a famous softcore actress, but after her untimely death the role went to an obscure actress named Angie Quick, aka Mandy Miller. No, I hadn't heard of her either; she only ever appeared in three films, in one of which she was uncredited. She wasn't particularly attractive, which surprised me as I had always imagined good looks would be essential for the starring role in a film of this nature. The original Emmanuelle, Silvia Kristel, was not a great actress, but she was certainly a beauty.

As you might imagine, there isn't really much plot. Emmanuelle shares a home with a married couple, Kate and Paul, both of whom are her lovers. All three are bisexual, although Paul's bisexuality is something we only learn about through hearsay, as softcore porn could be boy/girl or girl/girl but seldom boy/boy. What story there is involves Kate and Emmanuelle trying to find work in the adult entertainment industry and photographer Paul trying to market his snaps via an unscrupulous theatrical agent. As with most films of this nature, the "plot" is really an excuse for the display of as much bare flesh as possible, coupled with a few sex scenes.

Apart from the epicene, prettier-than-any-girl Kevin Fraser as Paul, the most attractive performer on display is the half-Chinese Julie Lee as Kate; like Millington, Julie was to die tragically young, being killed in a road accident in 1983. Nobody shows any acting talent; even the sex scenes are surprisingly perfunctory. This was one of the last British softcore films to receive a theatrical release before the market was largely killed off by the rise of video, and the love scenes may have been toned down for fear that anything harder might lead to the film being banned by the British Board of Film Censors. The acting, as one might expect, is of an abysmally low standard. Softcore porn was not a genre which demanded great skills in this direction, or indeed any skills beyond a willingness to take one's clothes off.

This film recently turned up on British television, although I can't really think what the market for it might be these days. Perhaps the channel decided to show it to reassure anyone who fears that the country might be in a state of irreversible cultural decline that forty years ago standards were even lower. They must have been if people were prepared to pay good money to watch sleazy trash like this. 1/10.

While not exactly the last chicken in the shop, viz a viz the once infamously sleazy 'Emmanuelle' series of soft focus smut but now clearly well past its sell by date! In 'director', David Hughes's persistently inane and gratuitously bra-less, monumentally brainless T&A movie, this dour iteration of Emmanuelle takes on the lumpen form of a monotonous, decidedly unglamorous dark-haired slap n' tickle strumpet-crumpet named 'Emmanuelle of Soho' ('Randy' Mandy Miller). This prosaic performer makes an altogether dingy living repeatedly getting her skimpy schmutter off for innumerable cheapskate Soho filth-flingers, and thereafter luridly lounging around with the equally tepid, Kate Benson (Julie Lee). Benson 'stars' in a low rent, bafflingly banal burlesque while her fouffy-haired, singularly vapid photographer husband, Paul (Kevin Fraser) attempts to sell his puerile photos to sinister Soho sleaze merchant, Bill Anderson (John M. East). Paul later discovers that the duplicitous, shifty-eyed wretch, Anderson is making far more money on them than he is letting on, so hapless, Paul constructs a ribald ruse to get his lacklustre revenge, and thus ends the penurious plot!

This terminally flaccid 80s skin flick is a frequently hilarious red light relic wherein excruciatingly poor 'acting', arbitrary nudity, risible rutting, fruggable Disco-themed library music and entirely artless photography once passed for seamy 'adult' entertainment. Seen today 'Emmanuelle in Soho' is so egregiously shoddy to behold, so profoundly unerotic and absurdly incompetent as to almost lend it an aura of outrageously camp satire! The gloriously grot-minded, heroically hapless 'Emmanuelle in Soho' is riotously funny for all the wrong reasons!

'Emmanuelle in Soho' is manifestly awful smut, with all the tangible sensual appeal of a septic bunion, replete with moronic dialogue so asinine as to strongly suggest the 'author' might have some considerable trouble writing a cogent note to the milkman without nursies help! A genuinely sublime, uncommonly trashy celluloid calamity such as this appears all too rarely, and movie maestro, John Landis wittily parodied this turgid mode of sexless idiocy in his iconic 'See You Next Wednesday' skit. Voluptuously assisted by the buxom starlet, Linzi Drew, seen all too briefly in his classic 'American Werewolf in London', the delightfully uninhibited, ubiquitous 80s pin-up Drew also makes a no less brief, but equally exhilarating appearance in 'Emmanuelle in Soho'. It would be quite fair to state that Linzi's 'tremendously titillating talents' are quite demonstratively the stars of producer, John M. East's otherwise persistently pallid peep show.

Emmanuelle in Soho was one of the last theatrically released movies of the British sexploitation era. A big hit when it was first released in UK cinemas in 1981, it is now largely forgotten. The film has never been shown on TV and has only recently been widely available on video cassette.

Today it's definitely worth another look. It's a camp classic for fans of low budget British movies. Neither particularly sexy and certainly only unintentionally funny it still proves to be a revelation for anyone watching!

Whilst Mandy Miller enjoys the title role of Emmanuelle, it is half-Oriental actress Julie Lee who proves to be most watchable in the supporting role as Kate. This was Lee's only big starring role (she died after a horrific car crash in 1983) and you can see why. Frankly, she was a really terrible actress. It's obvious Lee was hired primarily for her stunning looks, but her lacklustre acting skills only make her more endearing to watch.

The plot isn't really worth mentioning, Julie Lee auditions for a part in a tacky nude revue at a seedy theatre and her weedy bisexual husband gets mixed up with the insatiable Emmanuelle and an unscrupulous agent (played by the desperately unfunny John M. East).

However, this movie is a MUST SEE! It harks back to a more innocent era of film-making when naughty little films got a big screen release and punters queued around the block to see them. Emmanuelle in Soho is wonderfully awful and very addictive. Go see it!

The only really worthwhile part of this movie is the beginning which is kind of mini-documentary on London's Soho district in the late 70's and early 80's (which was kind of a slightly tamer version of New York City's 42nd Street during that same era). It has one of those ridiculous moralistic-sounding narrators whose prattle about the "vice" in Soho is pretty ironic considering that the makers of this film were as responsible for the "vice" in the Soho of that time as anyone. After the documentary opening, however, the film settles down into a very boring fictional story about a nudie photographer, his wife (Julie Lee), and their close friend "Emanuelle" (Mandy Miller). While the husband and "Emanuelle" plot to take a revenge on a pornographer who has been ripping them off, the wife participates in some kind of all-nude theatrical revue, and the "plot" goes absolutely nowhere from there.

Obviously, this has nothing to do with either the pretentious French "Emmanuelle" series featuring Sylvia Kristel or the sleazy Italian rip-off "Black Emanuelle" series made famous by Laura Gemser and Joe D'Amato. This is instead a strictly British film by English porn magnates David Sullivan and John N. East. Unfortunately, this was made after Mary Millington had committed suicide, Suzy Mandel had gone on to small parts in Hollywood movies ("The Private Eyes") and starring roles in American hardcore features ("Blonde Ambition"), and Anna Bergman had gone back to Sweden to work with her famous father on films like "Fanny and Alexander". So Sullivan and East were reduced to some real "scrubbers" here and/or "actresses" who generally couldn't act their way out of an 8 mm porn loop. Mandy Miller is very bad, and Julie Lee is even worse, but, to be fair, the male actors (including producer East himself) don't fare much better.

The continental films of this era tended to be softcore with hardcore "inserts" featuring none of the original talent. In typical, more puritanical British fashion this is basically just a "nudie" film as far as Miller and Lee are concerned but with softcore sex "inserts" of other anonymous actresses to spice it up (at least by British standards). The problem with a lot of these sex films though, however graphic they are, is that there is literally NOTHING of interest in them beyond the strictly prurient. This is a pretty weak effort compared to both the continental "Emmanuelle"/"Emanuelle" films and also compared to Sullivan and East's earlier modest efforts like "Come Play with Me" and "The Playbirds". Not really recommended.

PS--If you are considering buying the "remastered" DVD of this, keep in mind that the "master" it was re-mastered from is apparently a crappy old VHS tape with tracking problems.

Here is a time capsule of Soho in the early eighties.Not particularly edifying it has to be said.John East was a Max Miller impersonator who I saw on stage.Poor Julie Lee who died a horrific death. The climax of this film is rather limp,much like the rest of this film