VACATION SEX

Around the world in eighty lays.

We said we’d try to eradicate Laura Gemser’s awful 1977 sexploitation train wreck Emanuelle – Perché violenza alle donne? from our memories, but then we found these two U.S. promos above and figured we’d loop back to share them since the movie had its U.S. premiere this month in 1980. They’re basically identical except for length, and bear the film’s English title Emanuelle Around trhe World. You notice they tout the film’s x rating—“X has never been so beautiful.” But it has been so beautiful—in virtually any x-rated film of that era. This was a situation where explicit footage—not of Gemser—was added after the fact. That usually makes for a disjointed mess, and it did the same here. Enjoy the posters, but don’t watch the film. There are better cheap thrills out there.

The line between the ravager and the ravaged gets pretty thin.

This Japanese poster was made for Dany la ravageuse, a French sexploitation movie known in English as Dany the Ravager, which premiered in Japan today in 1972. Is it just us, or does Dany the Ravager sound like the name of a Marvel character? Well, Sandra Julien as the titular Dany certainly has a super effect on those around her. She hitchhikes from Paris to the Côte d’Azur and gets into a series of adventures. In one, a driver fantasizes about getting naked and netting butterflies in the woods with her (we have some brilliant production photos of that below). In another, she spends quality naked time lakeside with another woman. In the next she’s picked up by two fugitive gangsters who soon turn on each other over her. And in yet another she meets a couple of hustlers in Monaco who pull the ole switcheroo in the dark so Julien ends up in bed with the wrong guy. It’s played for laughs, but still, it’s rapey.

Overall, the movie is brainless sexploitation, but not of the most pleasant variety, exemplified by a backseat sexual assault in the fugitives episode that turns into mutual attraction. It’s always jarring to experience cinema made before any form of social change took hold, whether change around what consitutued rape, or changes around portraying people of color, or changes around humor and ableism. Our favorite movies from the sexploitation genre feature women in control of their fictional adventures. However, on the opposite side of the social change coin, Dany la ravageuse is unflinching in its approach to male frontal nudity, so in that respect it was well ahead of its time. We think it’s worthy of deeper discussion academically, but as pure entertainment, unless you adore Julien or want to see a lot of French countryside, you can take a pass.

An idyll in the islands turns one woman's life upside down.

We’ve shared a couple of colorful posters by Italian artist Mario de Berardinis for the sexploitation movie Lesbo, but only last night did we get around to watching it. Written and directed by Edoardo Mulargia, it’s the story of famous writer’s wife, played by a twenty year-old Carla Romanelli, who on the island of Lesbos finds herself attracted to a fashion journalist played by Gisela Dali. Carla’s husband is impotent (and cries about it), but Romanelli isn’t looking to stray. She resists her urges but her husband begins to think she and Valli ending up in bed is inevitable, so he pays a gigolo to seduce his wife. The logic behind this is simply that— Well… actually we’re not sure. No wait—we get it. The gigolo will make Carla remember how much she loves dick, and keep her from caving in to Dali’s advances. Makes perfect sense.

Where would sexploitation cinema be without the Greek Isles? It’s a sobering thought, because the film world would be unbearably grey without those rocky archipelagos and islands stripping away the inhibitions of fevered European actresses. Not that you can see Lesbos well in the copy we watched. But having been to the Isles, we were able to use our memories to fill in the visual data. Lesbo’s heavy dramatics play out not only against travelogue scenery, but a sinuous soundtrack by Francesco de Masi. However, since the film was made during the censorship regime of Greece’s rightwing dictatorship it doesn’t generate much heat, and lesbianism is roundly condemned—while slapping around one’s wife is not. Do you want to put yourself through that? We didn’t think so. Lesbo premiered today in 1969.

What the Eva loving hell is happening in that jungle?

We don’t give much credence to crowdsourced film ratings. These days there are coordinated efforts to drag down the ratings of certain films based on casting rather than execution. However, with vintage films it’s a different deal. Nobody really bothers dragging down those ratings. The Italian exploitation flick Eva la Venere selvaggia, which would translate as “Eva the wild Venus” but is known in English as Kong Island, has a 2.9 rating on IMDB. And that website’s ratings are, if anything, too forgiving of vintage cinema. Therefore we know going in that this is a terrible film. But we like its posters, so we took the plunge.

A scientist in Kenya is implanting radio transmitters into the brains of gorillas in order to control their behavior. When Ursula Davis heads into the area on a hunting trip she’s kidnapped by these enslaved primates. Ursula’s compatriots follow her trail through bush and forest, along the way running across a feral woman played by Esmeralda Barros, who lives in the jungle and knows where to find the mad scientist’s underground lair. Within that lair the scientist is busy explaining to Ursula—in classic cheapo movie style—his entire world dominating plot. Shorter version: his mind control device works on humans too.

Obviously, the final reel deals with the rescue of Ursula and comeuppance for the mad scientist, but it’s as perfunctory as we just made it sound. The folks on IMDB were right this time. In fact, the movie is so bad there isn’t even much satisfaction in making fun of it. It’s too easy. The movie is laden with failure ranging from the script all the way down to the gorilla suits. It’s like a pressed muffuletta sandwich of incompetence—you can’t even discern all the layers, they’re packed so tight. Director Roberto Mauri called himself Robert Morris for this and it’s easy to see why. Kong Island is like something made by apes. It premiered today in 1968.

How many Laura Gemser Emanuelle movies were there? That depends on how you count them.

This is an alternate poster for Laura Gemser’s sexploitation flick Emanuelle – Perché violenza alle donne?, known in English as Emanuelle Around the World. Officially, Gemser starred as Emanuelle in nine films, but she headlined others titled Emanuelle-something playing characters not named Emanuelle. For example, in Emmanuelle 2: La antivirgen, Sylvia Kristel played Emanuelle, while Gemser was a masseuse. Another example: 1976’s Velluto nero was known as Black Emmanuelle, White Emmanuelle in the U.S., but Gemser played a character named Laura. Some people count these among Gemser’s Emanuelle films. The point is, the number can vary depending on who you ask. There were a lot—that’s all we know.

We discussed Emanuelle – Perché violenza alle donne? last year, so we want to pivot to the art today. This poster is similar to the other one, but the secondary elements are different. It looks a bit like the work of Sandro Symeoni (we didn’t mention it previously, but we thought so then too). Symeoni painted in several distinct styles, but take a look here and here, and see if we don’t have a point. However, this will remain unattributed until someone with more expertise than us weighs in, which generally happens sooner or later. Below, Gemser weighs in first. Verdict: about a hundred pounds. Emanuelle – Perché violenza alle donne? premiered today in 1977.

Your usual server won't be with you tonight. She's come down with a small case of murder.

The Swinging Barmaids, which splashed across U.S. screens for the first time this month in 1975, is one of those movies with a deliberately misleading title. Rather than the breezy erotic romp you’d expect, it’s a thriller about an insane serial killer who stalks a group of waitresses working in a Los Angeles go-go bar. The problems commence when Dyanne Thorne (yes, she made movies aside from the Ilsa atrocities) is stabbed to death, setting off an inept police investigation, while the killer sets his crazy sights on more victims. He’s the classic maladjusted loner you find in ’70s grindhouse filcks. You know the type: “You’re the first girl I ever met that wasn’t dirty underneath.” What type of woman wouldn’t immediately leave town after hearing something like that? Answer: a woman in a bad movie.

Eventually, to facilitate his homicidal efforts, Mr. Maladjustment gets a job as a dishwasher at the bar. More killings eventually lead to the unveiling of this wolf in the fold, and his inevitable perforation with 12-gauge buckshot. That isn’t a spoiler. His death is the entire point of the film. Well, that and boobs. But the problem is that this is all mounted perfunctorily, is poorly written, visually lackluster, narratively sluggish, and devoid of actorly charisma. In fact, if not for the nudity, you’d think The Swinging Barmaids was a minor television movie. The best thing going for it is the above poster art by the incomparable John Solie. Check, please.

Gordon and others get bushwacked in no-budget horse opera.


L’éperon brûlant is a U.S. movie titled Hot Spur, but once again we found a foreign poster far more intriguing than the domestic version. The movie was originally released in 1968, but this poster is from France and was made for the movie’s premiere there today in 1970. It’s signed by the artist: Loris. We can’t tell you anything about him or her except that they also painted posters for 1971’s L’homme qui vient de la nuit and 1974’s La virée superbe. This is an interesting effort.

We mainly wanted to watch this for raven brunette beauty Virginia Gordon, so imagine our suprise and dismay to see the filmmakers turn her into an unnatural blonde. In any case, the movie is nothing special—it’s a Western revenge drama, poorly directed by Lee Frost of Policewomen fame, and poorly acted by Gordon and everyone else. Basically, a Mexican farmhand is driven by constant abuse to seek revenge, and does so by kidnapping his cruel employer’s wife. Probably a bad idea.

The film takes advantage of the fraying censorship enforcement of the era to show more nudity and sexual violence than in previous years. There are themes embedded within the script about racism, patriarchal control, and what we’d call today male toxicity, but they’re so obscured by sexploitative content that you’ll be too busy feeling queasy to absorb any well-intentioned messaging. L’éperon brûlant/Hot Spur is basically a footnote suitable for true cineastes only. All others can give it a pass.

We decided to share this specific poster for a secondary reason. Users on both Alamy and Diomedia claim it as theirs, which is what happens when bloggers and Ebay sellers post high resolution images online to be hoovered up by opportunistic hustlers. Not that we don’t sometimes get images from Ebay. This one came from there. But we don’t try to claim false copyright on them. Once upon a time we considered uploading our thousands of original scans at huge sizes, but now the decision not to looks pretty smart. Many of those images would be on Alamy, Shutterstock, et al now.

In the last several years the problem of copyright squatters has grown, and with AI programs scouring the internet for instances of presumed infringement, threatening e-mails are increasingly going out to website operators. But once again, it needs to be pointed out that movie posters and promo shots were made for non-copyright holders to publicize the associated works, and such items fall into the category of fair use. The copyright on this poster belongs to the film studio or production company that originally made it (Les Films Leitienne), and isn’t transferred just because someone uploaded it to Alamy or any other site. If you operate a blog and get a threatening e-mail, ask for documentation of copyright. They’re obligated to provide that. But they won’t be able to.

Do not centerfold, spindle, or mutilate.


The Centerfold Girls has a pretty anodyne poster for what is a decidedly provocative film. It hit cinemas today in 1974 and is about a religious fanatic played by Andrew Prine who wishes to save (read: murder) three women who’ve posed nude for a men’s magazine called Bachelor. The film is divided into chapters, with the story around each stalking target—Jaime Lyn Bauer, Jennifer Ashley, and Tiffany Bolling—given about one third of the running time. Obviously that means—er, sorry, strongly suggests—that at least two of the trio die. Spoiler alert! There could also be collateral damage. Spoiler… allusion?

The movie lacks the tongue-in-cheek aspect of so much sexploitation cinema, falling more into the category of in-your-face grindhouse efforts like Thriller – en grym film and I Spit on Your Grave. In other words, it’s a mean little movie. But one with serious intent. There’s real effort made at character development, for example Ray Danton’s feckless playboy in chapter two. There’s also effort made to make the film look good. It’s cheap but competent, with some Hitchcockian touches added by experienced television and b-movie director John Peyser meant to let cinephiles know he’s no hack.

We came across comments in several places saying the movie is disrespectful toward women. That’s true. Any film that casts any distinct category of human as victims (and in grindhouse it’s usually women) can automatically be seen by some as targeted oppression—especially when that oppression is rampant in the real world. No film called The Centerfold Girls is interested in avoiding that criticism, so you go in knowing that. The result? It’s pretty good. You know what would have been really fun? If they’d made a sequel called The Centerfold Boys about Playgirl models. Beautiful, superficial, basically helpless male models. We should have been 1970s movie producers.

Nygren and friends teach moviegoers all about natural selection.

We’ll return to paperback covers tomorrow, but for the moment we’re running with the same sort of material we posted a couple of days ago, because as the weather warms thoughts naturally turn to sensual pleasures. We can’t think of a movie more sensual than Emmanuelle IV. Set in our planet’s most sensual country, steamy Brazil, it was the entry in the Emmanuelle series that ushered original lead Sylvia Kristel out the studio gate, and brought in the first of several new Emmanuelles, in this case Swedish actress Mia Nygren.

This West German poster, on which the film is titled Die orgien der Emmanuelle, or “the orgies of Emmanuelle,” caught our eye because—well, for several reasons—but mainly because Nygren is pushed into the background by Camella Donner, aka Camella Thomas. Why is that so interesting? Because she isn’t in the cast. She probably wasn’t even on the same continent. We guess the West German distributors wanted to sex up the poster a bit more. Donner would have been a great addition to the film, but even without her it was fun. Ridiculous, stupid, carnivalesque fun. They don’t make ’em like that anymore. Emmanuelle IV premiered in West Germany today in 1984. Bonus imagery below.

It's the same old story. Take a trip to the tropics, lose every bit of self control.

We ran across this Italian locandina for the shot-in-the-Dominican Republic sexploitation flick Il pavone nero, known in English as Voodoo Sexy, and thought it made a nice alternate promo to the one we posted years back. The movie premiered in Italy today in 1975, and with a title like Voodoo Sexy you know what it’s about: white skin + tropical heat = a total loss of inhibitions. Flicks of this ilk were an unofficial subgenre of ’70s and ’80s cinema. We love them, and you know why? Because they aren’t wildly inaccurate in terms of northerners going crazy down south. The star of this one was German actress Karin Schubert, and that’s the other reason we revisited the film—it gave us an excuse to share the photo of her below. Hope it helps you get over hump day.

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

1929—Seven Men Shot Dead in Chicago

Seven people, six of them gangster rivals of Al Capone’s South Side gang, are machine gunned to death in Chicago, Illinois, in an event that would become known as the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. Because two of the shooters were dressed as police officers, it was initially thought that police might have been responsible, but an investigation soon proved the killings were gang related. The slaughter exceeded anything yet seen in the United States at that time.

1935—Jury Finds Hauptmann Guilty

A jury in Flemington, New Jersey finds Bruno Hauptmann guilty of the 1932 kidnapping and murder of the Lindbergh baby, the son of Charles Lindbergh. Hauptmann is sentenced to death and executed in 1936. For decades, his widow Anna, fights to have his named cleared, claiming that Hauptmann did not commit the crime, and was instead a victim of prosecutorial misconduct, but her claims are ultimately dismissed in 1984 after the U.S. Supreme Court refuses to address the case.

1961—Soviets Launch Venus Probe

The U.S.S.R. launches the spacecraft Venera 1, equipped with scientific instruments to measure solar wind, micrometeorites, and cosmic radiation, towards planet Venus. The craft is the first modern planetary probe. Among its many achievements, it confirms the presence of solar wind in deep space, but overheats due to the failure of a sensor before its Venus mission is completed.

1994—Thieves Steal Munch Masterpiece

In Oslo, Norway, a pair of art thieves steal one of the world’s best-known paintings, Edvard Munch’s “The Scream,” from a gallery in the Norwegian capital. The two men take less than a minute to climb a ladder, smash through a window of the National Art Museum, and remove the painting from the wall with wire cutters. After a ransom demand the museum refuses to pay, police manage to locate the painting in May, and the two thieves, as well as two accomplices, are arrested.

1938—BBC Airs First Sci-Fi Program

BBC Television produces the first ever science fiction television program, an adaptation of a section of Czech writer Karel Capek’s dark play R.U.R., aka, Rossum’s Universal Robots. The robots in the play are not robots in the modern sense of machines, but rather are biological entities that can be mistaken for humans. Nevertheless, R.U.R. featured the first known usage of the term “robot”.

Cover art by Roswell Keller for the 1948 Pocket Books edition of Ramona Stewart's Desert Town.
Rare Argentinian cover art for The War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells.

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