Emmanuelle 5

For Monique Gabrielle, "Emmanuelle 5" did not become a long lasting breakthrough, but kept her in business. The story is pretty straight: Emmanuelle is kidnapped by Rajid who locks her up in his harem. Rajid behaves like a dictator and snores: "Women are weak", so he obviously didn't get to know Emmanuelle well enough yet. Friends of Emmanuelle want to rescue her, but wait until plenty of women inside the harem have been filmed long enough ;-).

Director Borowczyk was celebrating the character of Emmanuelle: "She is free, without prejudice, and she has confidence in herself" (quoted from "Cinema" 4/87). And she even gets a machine gun this time which makes confidence easier, I bet... Even though is has very little to do with the original Emmanuelle, Vol.5 is at least fun, moving faster than any other contribution to the series. The scene which sticks to everybody's mind is right at the beginning, when an enthusiastic crowd tears Emmanuelle's clothes off at a film festival, so her only escape is a jump on a yacht whose owner is understandably bewildered. I voted 7/8/6/4/6/7 for the six cinema films of the series.

(Edit 2017) Nine years after my review above, I got a copy of the German version to watch. We are talking about an entirely different movie here compared to the US version. In the German version, which also includes censored remains of a French video version, there is hardly a linear story and the editing is experimental, to put it mildly. I am not surprised that the American distributors decided to shoot additional scenes and re-edit the whole mess to make it more commercial - less art maybe, but a lot more enjoyable.

While I don't want to rave too much about the 1970's Emmanuelle films, either the "official" French series with Sylvia Kristel or the more notorious unofficial "Black Emanuelle" series of Laura Gemser and Joe D'Amato, there was always SOMETHING interesting about them. This movie marked the point though where the series became totally worthless. First off, they cast American B-movie bimbo Monique Gabrielle in the title role. It's not just that she is a worse actress than Kristel or Gemser (which she certainly is), but she is also totally wrong for the European flavor of the role. It's like casting Queen Latifah in the lead role of "Memoirs of Gisha".

They did hire interesting if erratic director Walerian Borowzyc, but when he and Gabrielle clashed they fired him. Roger Corman than did an incredible hatchet job on the film Borowzyc had made. Most of what he cut out, I've heard, were the sex scenes involving the black characters. The European fascination for these kind of interracial sex scenes was not exactly a blow for civil rights (anymore than Joe D'Amato's fascination for equine masturbation was a blow for animal rights), but whether these cuts made the film less racist or more racist, they certainly ruined the rhythm of the movie, left Gabrielle and her equally untalented male co-star with too much screen time, and it's even hard to tell in the final cut that this film was shot on location on the beautiful island of Reunion--thus the movie loses all the travelogue appeal of the early series (other than an idiotic prologue set at Cannes where Gabrielle's character is chased and stripped naked by a mob of fans).

After this fiasco the producers tried to recapture the European-flavor and old magic with "Emmanuelle 6" and by dusting off Syvia Kristel and teaming her with washed-up former James Bond George Lazenby in a French television series. But finally, the "Emmanuelle" movies fell victim to silicone, both in the increasingly overstuffed breasts of increasingly untalented actresses, and in the "futuristic", computer- themed plots, which were apparently aimed at sexually frustrated "Star Trek" fans. But even if socially-maladjusted computer geeks weren't getting all their porn off the internet, they would probably be laughing their asses off at the pathetic "hi-tech" nonsense of "Emannuelle in Space" and "Emmanuelle 2000". A sad end for a series that was never good, but certainly deserved better than this.

Emmanuelle 5 (1987)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Emmanuelle (Monique Gabrielle) is at Cannes showing off her latest film, which is bought by an Arab prince. Emmanuelle goes to his small country for the premiere but soon she is held captive by the evil ruler who won't even allow women to show their legs or touch themselves but that's not going to sit well with our star. Apparently there are three versions of this film; the original European version, an American edit and an alternate hardcore version. I watched the American edit, which features some newly shot scenes as well as outtakes from the Euro version. I've never been a huge fan of the director but I might go as far to say this is the most entertaining film I've seen from him. If you've seen any of the Emmenuelle movies, whether the original series or the Black Emanuelle movies, then you know what to expect. Gabrille isn't much of an actress but she does have a great body and shows it off enough to keep the film moving. The supporting cast includes Crofton Hardester and Dana Bruns Westburg but they don't add a whole lot to the film. The biggest problem is the studio subplot dealing with the evil ruler who won't let women be free but of course we all know this movie was made to show women naked so the political message just comes off silly and rather stupid. Apparently fans have called Borowczyk a sell out for doing this film but there's still plenty of "art" here to where he can call it his own. I doubt his die-hard fans are going to give this film too much credit so I'd say those seeking cheap nudity will be the ones to enjoy this the most.

I haven't watched the movie in full yet, I am just coasting along merrily taking in the view, and the golden- tressed curves of the road makes for a pleasure-filled ride. In the meantime, just dropping all you two-bit critics a line to stress that you cannot fault Monique Gabrielle for this. She has a charm (besides the obvious ones) and she does as best she can for a movie with clear limitations. I don't think anybody else could have filled her shoes, even if she seems to be carrying them the whole time.

Serious movie, clearly NO, but pretty heroine SURE ENOUGH. Should have been done different, but it has to play to a very demanding audience WHO DOES WANT EXACTLY THIS KIND OF SCENERY, THIS KIND OF PLOT so do bear that in mind. Things happen way too soon and heavy-handed for us with the (ahem) refined tastes, but our salivating grease-monkey brethren want it no other way, and they'd be bored if the movie came in at a slower, more subdued pace, hence the unbelievably ridiculous Cannes scene. Nice view, though. Very, very nice, thank you.

Let's be honest, one does not watch a movie such as this for the intellectual kind of stimulation. It is softcore porn, and is closer to that genre than film. As such, the acting is near always amateurish and unrealistic; story line ridiculous if even existent; and most importantly, its structure is segregated into sex scenes with filler space between them to fake a movie format. A good softcore movie has many great sex scenes, and somewhat entertaining if imbecile filler space. "Emmanuelle 5" has only 4 sex scenes, mere 2 of which are decent, and 1:40 of BAD filler space. These numbers mean it's poop, don't waste your time.