Vintage Pulp

September 16 2023

A WORLDLY WOMAN

Gemser travels to many distant cities, and meets the worst people in every one of them.

To say that Laura Gemser’s Emanuelle films are hit and miss is an understatement of epic proportions. While early entries have the happy softcore feel needed for thought-free diversion and occasional boners, later offerings veer into dark territory. Emanuelle – Perché violenza alle donne? is in the latter category. An Italian production, the title translates as “Emanuelle – Why violence against women?” Erotic cinema and social commentary don’t usually mix well—not because they’re mutually exclusive, but because the filmmakers never have the skill to pull it off. In the U.S. the movie was retitled Emanuelle Around the World, which sounds fine, but its international English title was changed to The Degradation of Emanuelle. Uh oh.

Gemser’s adventures begin in San Francisco when her New York based photo-journalist character enjoys a satisfying boning in the back of a truck. But soon she’s off on her next assignment, a titillating expose of a Kama Sutra commune in Asia. Once there she meets creepy guru George Eastman and uses her superior sexual skills to make his holiness transcendentally ejaculate too fast. Up to this point Perché violenza alle donne? is somewhat fun. But next Gemser meets up with pal Karin Schubert in Rome and joins an assignment to expose a sexual slavery ring. Wait—didn’t she do that in Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade? Yup, but slavers never quit. This collection of bad men are unusually horrible. One is is a burn victim who rapes his captives. Another has a penchant for bestiality.

Obviously, during the 1970s filmmakers didn’t really understand the idea of unintentionally minimizing serious subject matter the same way they do today. It was the “what-the-fuck-let’s-give-it-a-try” era, and taking such risks produced some of the greatest cinema ever. But in this case writer/director Joe D’Amato and co-writers Maria Pia Fusco and Gianfranco Clerici failed. Badly. A movie on the subject of slavery and rape would be unpleasant but important if it were a Claire Denis drama or a Laura Poitras documentary. Mixing it into a flyweight sex film doesn’t add dramatic weight—it adds discordance, embarrassment, and insult. It was a total miscalculation. You could potentially watch the film until Gemser departs the Kama Sutra commune, then turn it off. If you don’t, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

However, we try to see the good in every movie we screen, so we should note that there are some high points. We’ll list them. The Emanuelle films were typically shot in exotic locales, and in this case not only does D’Amato set scenes in New York City and San Francisco, but in Kathmandu, Rome, Hong Kong, and—for real—Teheran. Gemser is a limited actress, but one who always does her best with preposterous scripting. Schubert is a stolid co-star. Underutilized Don Powell is always a welcome sight. And lastly, many of the production photos, some of which appear below, are interesting. That’s about all the good we can find. We’ll just slide Emanuelle – Perché violenza alle donne? into ye olde metaphorical trash bin and forget it ever happened. It premiered in Italy today in 1977.

Vintage Pulp

January 5 2022

THE AMERICAN WAY

Gemser exercises her right to bare arms—and everything else too.

We try to document the top erotic stars of yesteryear—Lindberg, Forså, Annie Belle, Izumi Shima. Today it’s Laura Gemser’s turn again, this time starring in Emanuelle in America, which premiered in Italy today in 1977. This entry is third, fourth, or seventh in her Emanuelle series, depending on how you count them, and sees her investigating a multi-national sex trafficking ring that kidnaps women and kills them for the production of underground snuff films. That synopsis and the fact that the movie is helmed by Joe D’Amato are all you need to know to suspect this is going all sorts of disturbing places, and indeed, your worst fears will be realized, as scenes of documentary-style transgressive violence occur, and there’s a scene of a woman stroking off a horse. Fortunately, the snuff sequences are fake. They were staged by Italian special effects experts Giannetto de Rossi and Maurizio Trani. The horse thing? That’s real.

*heavy sigh*

Okay, so let’s forget those problems for now. What’s the thrust of the movie? It’s a scathing indictment of the decadent wealthy, people who money has deadened inside and who must buy increasingly depraved thrills to bring stimulation to their lives. During the course of Gemser’s investigation she goes undercover as a high priced call girl, jets from the U.S. to Venice to the Caribbean and back to the States, gets naked or topless numerous times, and has her skinny body handled and squeezed by man and woman alike, including her real-life husband Gabriele Tinti. As usual her sexual powers are transformative. For instance a carjacker wants to kill her but has never experienced sex and has his lid flipped by his first blowjob. Later a call girl with no self worth comes to see the world in a brighter light after a slippery steam room session with Gemser. She’s like a superhero—with a superpower you really have to marvel at.

We won’t tell you how the whole snuff plotline resolves. You’ll just have to watch—all the way to the baffling postscript. Should you decide to partake, you’ll probably end up with a version of the movie that has hardcore sequences featuring porn actresses Paola Senatore and Marina Lotar inserted, so to speak. Usually such scenes shred continuity, and they do here too, as well as failing to add much to the overall erotic value of the film. We’ll admit though, that the bit where a woman sticks daisies in a man’s nest of pubes then says, “Your bush is in flower,” was funny. The other high point is Gemser, hitting her stride here as the Emanuelle character, looking her best, making stick-thin more alluring than she has any right to. She does the same in many additional entries. A few of those efforts are better, but many are far worse, so we’ll have to call Emanuelle in America above average.

Italy, Venice, Emanuelle in America, Laura Gemser, Gabriele Tinti, Paola Senatore, Marina Lotar, Joe D'Amato, Aristide Massaccesi, poster art, cinema, sexploitation, nudity, movie review, xxx

Modern Pulp

August 20 2017

ESOTIC BLEND

Gemser makes a movie out of spare parts.

In Porno Esotic Love Indonesian sexploitation superstar Laura Gemser finds herself in another exotic locale—this time Hong Kong—where she engages in another series of softcore romps with hirsute westerners. She made something like twenty-six movies along these lines, which is why the makers of this one couldn’t resist taking shortcuts. They cobbled together a good chunk of the footage from Gemser’s previous outings and shoehorned them into a new narrative about a woman seeking revenge for the heroin overdose of her sister. The cynical usage of previously shot footage makes this one of director Joe D’Amato’s worst efforts, but also one of his most profitable, we suspect. We can’t possibly recommend the movie, but in order to compensate for the aching sense of loss you probably feel, there’s a promo shot of Gemser below kicking back on a large rock, or perhaps the world’s smallest deserted island, depending on how you want to look at it. Porno Esotic Love premiered in Italy today in 1980.

West Germany, Italy, Indonesia, Hong Kong, Die Todesgöttin des Liebescamps, Porno Esotic Love, Laura Gemser, Joe D'Amato, sexploitation, poster art, cinema, nudity, movie review

Vintage Pulp

October 17 2013

GARDEN OF EATIN’

Laura Gemser ventures into uncharted territory in Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals.

Laura Gemser’s Emanuelle series started innocuously enough, but soon she was running into slavers, zombies, and Amazon cannibals. It’s the latter she contends with in Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali, aka Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, and she handles them and their voracious appetites for human meat the way she handles pretty much every obstacle in her movies—by getting naked. In truth, Gemser has nothing to fear from flesh eaters—she’s nothing but skin and bones. But of course her angular, stick-figure exoticism is her appeal.

You really have to appreciate how hard Gemser tries to breathe life into this one, gamely wading into fetid swamps, battling murderous anacondas, and letting ham-fisted Italian dudes paw her tender parts. Her co-stars Gabriele Tinti, Mónica Zanchi, Annamaria Clementi, and Nieves Navarro likewise give their all—including some innards, a uterus, and plenty of dignity—but the mixture of sex and gore is jarring, and the Mondo Cane style shock documentary realism is totally inappropriate. Oh, and we’ll add that the scene in which a chimpanzee smokes a cigarette—and French style, no less—is just wrong.

We gather that this was a pioneering effort by director Joe D’Amato at genre mash-up, but being neither scary nor erotic, we can only shrug at the final result. However, on the plus side of the ledger you get a groovy score from Nico Fidenco, some lush tropical scenery, and several unintentionally funny “cannibal cam” sequences. In the end, the film imparts one important lesson, which is that there’s never a bad time to get your hump on, even when homicidal cannibals are lurking in the undergrowth. Above you see the movie’s nice Italian poster, painted by Lamberto Forni. Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali premiered in Italy today in 1977.

Italy, Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals, Laura Gemser, Gabriele Tinti, Nieves Navarro, Mónica Zanchi, Nico Fidenco, Annamaria Clementi, Lamberto Forni, poster art, cinema, horror, sexploitation, nudity, movie review

ABOUT

EMAIL

LEGAL

SEARCH PULP INTERNATIONAL

PULP INTL.
HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

November 13

1940—Fantasia Premieres

Walt Disney’s animated film Fantasia, which features eight animated segments set to classical music, is first seen by the public in New York City at the Broadway Theatre. Though appreciated by critics, the movie fails to make a profit due to World War II cutting off European revenues. However it remains popular and is re-released several times, including in 1963 when, with the approval of Walt Disney himself, certain racially insulting scenes were removed. Today Fantasia is considered one of Disney’s greatest achievements and an essential experience for movie lovers.

November 12

1912—Missing Explorer Robert Scott Found

British explorer Robert Falcon Scott and his men are found frozen to death on the Ross Ice Shelf in Antarctica, where they had been pinned down and immobilized by bad weather, hunger and fatigue. Scott’s expedition, known as the Terra Nova expedition, had attempted to be the first to reach the South Pole only to be devastated upon finding that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen had beaten them there by five weeks. Scott wrote in his diary: “The worst has happened. All the day dreams must go. Great God! This is an awful place.”

November 12

1933—Nessie Spotted for First Time

Hugh Gray takes the first known photos of the Loch Ness Monster while walking back from church along the shore of the Loch near the town of Foyers. Only one photo came out, but of all the images of the monster, this one is considered by believers to be the most authentic.

November 12

1969—My Lai Massacre Revealed

Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh breaks the story of the My Lai massacre, which had occurred in Vietnam more than a year-and-a-half earlier but been covered up by military officials. That day, U.S. soldiers killed between 350 and 500 unarmed civilians, including women, the elderly, and infants. The event devastated America’s image internationally and galvanized the U.S. anti-war movement. For Hersh’s efforts he received a Pulitzer Prize.

November 11

1918—The Great War Ends

Germany signs an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car outside of Compiègne, France, ending The Great War, later to be called World War I. About ten million people died, and many millions more were wounded. The conflict officially stops at 11:00 a.m., and today the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month is annually honored in some European nations with two minutes of silence.