L'éveil d'Emily

If watching this for a great storyline, acting, writing, or character development, your definitely not watching for the right reasons. It's an el cheapo sex film, nothing more, nothing less. Of course, it's famous for the shower scene with Koo Stark and Ina Skiver. Much has been said by posters here about Koo Stark, but what about Ina Skivner. She had a fine, smooth figure, free of the the tattoos and hardware that seen in the "After Hours" stuff on Showtime and it's On Demand feature in digital cable. Remember, this movie was made just as the exercise boom was getting off the ground. Also, I liked the way Agustine smiled when Emily called for the massage. You get the impression that maybe she asked Emily to pose in a manner that a crick in the neck would occur.

It has been many years since I've seen this film, but what I remember is that is deals with Emily's sexual awakening to womanhood. I would recommend seeing the uncensored version since the video I saw trimmed off most of the steamier scenes. The shower scene between Emily (Koo Stark) and Augustine (Ina Skriver) is beautiful and sensual and makes up for the film's shortcomings.

Koo Stark may have given the tabloid headline-writers a heck of a name to play with, but the reality was anything but sizzling, and it is hard to make out what Prince Andrew saw in her, at least outwardly. The face carries no distinction whatever - just ordinary hausfrau features that never display any depth of expression. The body, although well-photographed in the shower scene, is no more shapely than most. The voice is not unappealing, but it lacks any character or charm.

Whether she can be classified as an actress at all is unclear from this video. The story is set in 1928, apparently for no other reason than to provide a class-based narrative, with forbidden liaisons across the boundaries. Therefore many of the lines are meant to echo what we take for Twenties talk - stilted, trivial and going nowhere.

Emily (Stark) is a school-leaver, ripe and ready for deflowering. She starts to discover herself via the lesbian route, and holds back on the big deed, until she learns that her mother (played by Sarah Brackett, spectacular if nothing else) can support her upper-class lifestyle only through taking rich lovers. For some reason, Emily feels she must 'become a woman' before she can face her again. That is good news for one lucky motorist who has taken her on a drive into deep country, though the supposedly-climactic outdoor seduction scene must be the worst ever filmed; their two bodies look like a tangle of cold tripe.

Meanwhile the housemaid is also clinging to her virginity, until she unexpectedly glimpses Madam up to mischief, and then reacts the same way, to the delighted surprise of her long-suffering soldier boyfriend.

The opening titles come up against a long background-shot of a train belching smoke, as a hardly-original code for a vintage story, though it may also have been trying to reference a vastly better coming-of-age film 'Greengage Summer' with Susannah York and Kenneth More, who said it was the happiest film he ever made.

A Rod McKuen song 'Riding through the autumn' adds interest, but does not move the story forward. The dinner-party scene is interspersed with soft-porn shots representing the thoughts behind the small talk, one of the few good touches. Otherwise, this film utterly fails the test of any porn-feature - to create suspense and longing. And last heard-from, Koo Stark is playing Miss Havisham for real, still believing on one level that history never happened, and that she has gone on to become a world-acclaimed princess. Maybe she's an actress after all.

This is kind of a British version of "Emmanuelle", which means it is quite a bit tamer, but every bit as stupid, as the Continental films. For no real reason (other than a sorry attempt at classiness), it is set in the 1920's "Flapper" era. It is basically about a young girl who returns home from boarding to school to discover that her widowed mother, her mother's friends, and even her timid maid are all (gasp!) sexually active. She plots to lose her own virginity, first to a brash young pilot, but ultimately to a bisexual female painter and her husband, and. . .well, that's about it.

The principal asset(with emphasis on the first three letters of the word)of this film is the beautiful Koo Stark, who would have been the Ducchess of York if not for the scandal surrounding her appearance in films like this. Stark is not much more talented than Sylvia Kristel, Laura Gemser, et. al., but she is at least halfway believable as a naive virgin. She also might (with big emphasis on "might")be one of the few European actresses of the era whose full-frontal nude scenes are worth the pain of sitting through this kind of pretentious Euro-tripe. Recommended for all the drooling sex fiends out there if no one else.

Excellent movie. I especially enjoyed the shower scene. I highly recommend this movie.

The soundtrack was excellent. The characters were a little shallow, but it still was a great movie.