Black Emanuelle en Orient

This is a suprisingly good film. The photography is good, it seems to have some decent production values, the score is excellent, and the editing is slick. It outclasses many of D'Amato's hardcore films and the erotic scenes are more hot than anything you can see late night on cinemax. An overlooked D'Amato/Gemser classic I say.

This is the first, and most likely the only Joe D'Amato film ever to hit Belgian television screens. Quite logical, since the titles on his repertoire go from nauseating horror films ("Anthropophagous", "Beyond the Darkness") to hardcore porno flicks ("Tarzan X") and sometimes even a combination of both ("Erotic Nights of the Living Dead", "Porno Holocaust"). D'Amato pretty much behaves himself here and follows the formula of the original "Black Emanuelle" film, released one year before, but that doesn't mean avid D'Amato-fans have to worry, as there still is an enormous amount of genuine sleaze to enjoy. "Emanuelle in Bangkok" has virtually no plot at all and you can't even fully believe the title, as our sexy protagonist's journey to the Far East is very brief and she only has contact with two Asian people (a masseuse and a bell-boy). The film most "crucial" sequences are set on a cruise ship and in Morocco, where she has an off/on relationship with a persistent archaeologist. I have no complaints, though, since the camera beautifully captures Laura Gemser's erotic adventures with men, women, couples and herself. Joe D'Amato's trademarks are bizarrely tinted sexual situations, and there's only one such sequence in this film, namely the Japanese stripper who puts ping-pong balls up her vagina. Weird… One aspect about "Emanuelle in Bangkok", as well as in the entire cycle, is downright brilliant and that's the music. Nico Fidenco's score is mesmerizing and, without exaggerating, at least ten times better than every other score that ever won an Oscar. The dazzling soundtrack alone makes "Emanuelle in Bangkok" a true cult classic that every fan of the genre will enjoy watching.

The first thing that struck me about EMANUELLE IN BANGKOK was Nico Fidenco's music score, a whistling, happy, bumbling little ditty that would be right at home on a YouTube video compilation of Tourette's Guy clips. Or maybe a toothpaste commercial, its stuck in my head now and fortunately for my sanity, its not bad. I'd whistle it for you if I could, and can't help but wonder if that's Alessandro Alessandroni doing his trademark thing there. He's the guy whistling on the old spaghetti western soundtracks, proof once again that while often derivative the Italians managed to create some new forms. The movies may often be cheap & boring, but they almost always have great musical scores.

I would paint this one into the same category. It looks pretty much like Joe D'amato took a sprawling vacation with some of his favorite stock players (Laura Gemser, her husband Gabrielle Tinti), a couple of Italian genre cinema leading males he maybe owed a favor to (Ivan Rassimov & my hero Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) and a few sexy Euro body babes with no problems with nudity, group groping and the occasional half naked lesbian make-out with Ms. Gemser (Ely Galleani, Debra Berger, Gaby Bourgois). He brought along a camera, maybe a mistress to hold the scripts while somebody made sure there was enough light, and went about their touristy ways while filming a scene or two here & there as they traveled about.

Two scenes sort of spoil the fun, first another barbaric episode of Italian filmmakers using animal violence to fill some screen time, then an inexplicable sequence where Ms. Gemser is sexually assaulted by a mob of greaseballs who make a point to humiliate her while getting their jollies off. Inexplicable because afterward she seems quite at ease with herself and chats pleasantly with her attackers as if they had just met at a diner. Then again its all just a silly phallocentric fantasy really, about guys with unlimited means traveling exotic lands in the company of attractive women in their 20s whom they have random sex with, often playing erotic group games for grown ups & swapping partners, though the version I saw was strictly a softcore engagement. The most arousing display being a scene where the girls all get up, strip down to their panties and dance like a harem for an Arabian prince.

Or something like that, to tell the truth I was hardly paying attention to the story and frankly couldn't care less. Like a spaghetti western you watch stuff like this for the individual moments rather than the cumulative effect, and most of it passed quite pleasantly with the occasional raised eyebrow. Like the scene were Emanuelle entertains a crowd in a private club by dripping hot candle wax all over her magnificent, nude body. For all we know and given the way Joe D'amato worked, the whole film might have been just an excuse to put that up on the screen. It may not pass as entertainment for some, but for those two minutes this movie was the only thing I was thinking about.

4/10

Emanuelle in Bangkok (1976)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Joe D'Amato's first stab in the "Black Emanuelle" series with Laura Gemser in her second stint as the character. In this film, Emanuelle travels to Bangkok to get an interview with their King but she spends most of her time screwing any man or woman she can get her hands on. This film doesn't contain the sleaze factor that future D'Amato/Gemser films have but there's still some fairly naughty stuff here including one woman who sticks a golf ball up her vagina and then blows it out. Animal lovers will also want to stay away as there's a disgusting scene with a snake and muskrat fighting it out to the (real) death. As for the rest of the film, it's amazing that D'Amato would make so many softcore and hardcore adult films (this one is soft) and yet never manage to capture anything remotely erotic ala other directors in the field like Franco and Rollin. Gemser is a hot piece of ass but D'Amato does nothing with that beauty and the non-erotic moments is what really kills this thing. The so called story is boring enough and while there's plenty of sex and nudity, this too gets boring after a while. This film was followed by Emanuelle in America, which also features Pedro the horse. Now that film and star get an ultimate yuck.

In the summer of 1995, Showtime aired this movie almost every night, after "Red Shoe Diaries" and usually around 1 AM. I thought then this was the strangest soft-core thing I've ever seen. Over the years, I've seen far more bizarre, but this one still remains memorable to me after all these years.

First off, the music. Bad '70s porno music meets Asian karaoke. Seriously. There are really only 2 songs here, and I don't know the names of them, so I'll give them names: "Like A Sailing Ship," which has a ship horn in its chorus ("TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!"), and "I Wander Safe At Night," which is played most prominently during the big group drug/orgasm scene, perhaps the standout scene in this film: a bunch of people smoke pot (or some mind-altering drug), then get horny and get freaky. All to the strains of a bad guitar solo. This should be a requirement for all soft-core porn.

Laura Gemser is pretty hot, she could easily still stand out even today. Come to think of it, all the women here are not bad-looking at all. If you can stand the fact that a lot of George W.'s last name is in full force here (personal grooming wasn't in in 1976, kids), you might like the ladies.

"Emanuelle in Bangkok," a standout film from my lonely teenager years. I don't even remember the plot, and I don't care. Seeing this now brings back memories of me with Cool Ranch Doritos and a bottle of Pepsi, keeping the volume low so my parents wouldn't hear it, settling back to Showtime's late-night lineup, which included this film and "Red Shoe Diaries." Those were the days...