I mavri Emmanouella

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Goddess Gemser is beautiful.

This is typical of the films she had been doing. Rich, greedy people trying to put one over on each other. Said people have weird ideas about love too.

She starts by fiddling with a guy in order to get him to kill another guy by pouring sand into his airplane gas. She succeeds, then takes over a young woman's life.

She plays out of type here though. She's meant to be seen as evil. Her actions were those of a real harpy.

The scenery was lush and the nudity was rampant but the story was a bit old. Fans of Goddess Gemser (ME ME ME) will enjoy it for sure.

`That girl' Laura Gemser was permanently plastered across adult cinema screens in the 70s. Hardly a great actress but an absolute stunner, the Javanese-born former model came to international attention in the 1975 smash Black Emanuelle (that's one M to avoid prosecution). She also guested with Sylvia Krystal the same year in Emmanelle 2 as a masseuse, then made five more `official' Black Emanuelle sequels for the notorious `Joe D'Amato'/Aristide Massaccesi, including the gut-munching sleaze of Emanuelle And The Last Cannibals. Countless other titles in Gemser's 50-plus filmography have been retitled to cash in on her fame. Emanuelle's Daughter started out as `Sexy Moon', certainly not one of Gemser's best - my pick is Divine Emanuelle (aka Love Camp, 1980), a ludicrous Jonestown-style musical (!).

An often turgid softcore soap opera and travelogue, it was filmed in Cyprus at the height of the Euro-disco craze (you can see the Village People perform `YMCA' on a TV set!). A rich industrialist dies under mysterious circumstances, and his widow ‘Emanuelle' returns to his estate in control of his fortune and his young rebellious daughter. It appears Emanuelle was subject to her husband's perverted whims, and now seeks revenge on his partners-in-crime with the help of the vicious womanizing disco king Mario (Gemser's long-time husband Gabriele Tinti). The film explores the daughter's budding sexuality; Cyprus must have a lower age of consent, as she looks about 14 with her gear off. Familiar face Gordon Mitchell, former muscleman and star of countless westerns and Hercules films, plays one of the husband's cronies, and is dubbed by the voice of Bud Spencer - I keep expecting him to down 14 hotdogs and clock Gemser on the nut! Passable disco tail-waver.

The "Black Emanuelle" series went from pointless erotica ("Black Emanuelle") to the most crass and tasteless Italian exploitation ("Emanuelle in America")without ever actually achieving any drama or a real plot. This is about the closest the series ever came to a real movie. Gemser has a meatier-than-usual role as a trophy wife who has knocked off her rich, jaded husband, but is being blackmailed by the sleazy character she hired to do it. She falls in love with her late husband's industrialist partner (played by Gemser's real husband Gabrielle Tinti), and for some reason keeps around her husband's busty mistress, who had helped him sexually torture her and who begins plotting with the blackmailer against her. On the other, she seems genuinely devoted to her husband's teenage daughter, Livia (thus this movie was alternately called "Emmanuelle's Daughter" to capture the lucrative pervert market). The blackmailer, a sleazy looking Greek guy who always has a rose between teeth, makes his way sexually through the entire female cast, but isn't necessarily a very intimidating villain.

The ending of this movie is abrupt and incredibly stupid, but up until then there is some genuine dramatic tension, making this slightly more interesting than the typical Emanuelle flick. It's not nearly as transgressive and disturbing as some of the Joe D'Amato Emanuelle films (although the Italian sleazemeister was peripherally involved in this on the production end). There is one unpleasantly graphic, but not entirely gratuitous, rape scene involving an actress of an indeterminate, but probably pretty young, age--but no "snuff film" footage, equine masturbation, or cannibalism here.

Gemser, on the other hand, looks great and really gets a chance to act for change. Definitely recommended for Gemser/Emanuelle fans. As for everyone else. . .well, why are you reading this anyway?

Given the title, one might be forgiven for thinking that Emanuelle Queen of Sados has its dusky star Laura Gemser playing the wicked ruler of an ancient, lost kingdom of the type to be found in the classic H. Rider Haggard novel She. Sadly, this is not the case: what we actually get is yet another mediocre adventure for the sultry sex-mad siren in which, as usual, she gets to bonk just about everyone else in the film.

This time around, Emanuelle isn't a world famous reporter, but rather the vengeful wife of a businessman who is out to settle the score after being sexually abused by her despicable hubby Victor and his equally nasty colleagues, Ilona (Nadia Neri) and Robert (Gordon Mitchell).

After hiring a killer named Mario (Haris Tryfonas) to bump off her wicked spouse in a 'flying accident', Emanuelle is appointed the executor of her step-daughter Livia's inheritance, plus control over her late husband's business, and wastes no time in making life hard for Ilona and Robert. Upset at Emanuelle's interference, and not entirely convinced that Victor's death was accidental, Robert decides to do some investigating which makes Mario less than happy...

A Greek Cypriot production directed by Ilias Mylonakos, Sados never plumbs the depths of tastelessness reached by Italian filth-monger Joe D'amato in his more infamous Emanuelle films: the sex is strictly soft-core—raunchy but not explicit—and there is certainly no gore to speak of. Despite this, Sados does manage to be uncomfortable viewing at times, thanks to the presence of jail-bait actress Livia Russo, who as blossoming teen Livia not only has to strip off for a shower scene and dance suggestively (flashing her gusset), but also be subjected to a harrowing sex attack that spares no detail. I've no problem with nudity (I wouldn't be watching a Gemser film if I did), but someone that young getting her kit off in a soft-core porn flick just feels wrong.

But hey, I suppose that's why they call it exploitation!

5.5 out of 10, rounded up to 6 for killer stud Mario's silky shirt and massive flares.

Complete nonsense with awful dialogue but above average as a sex movie. Gemser, of course is as lovely as ever, but given a little too much to do here and what with the rambling of the script she has little chance, even if she fares better than most who seem to take it in turns to under act and over act. Taking the storyline seriously is a bad mistake but the many and varied sex sequences are fine. If you don't mind sex mixed with more than a little violence that is. Here we get rape and near rape, an extraordinary scene where a medallion wearing gentleman disturbs a woman in his flat, knocks her about a bit and then considers that sex would be a good idea and the couple fall into each other's arms, and other almost jaw dropping moments. Unbelievable shots of Gemser nude astride a horse deep in the sea which may or may not be supposed to contrast with a later rape of a young girl in the shallow surf!