Emanuelle in America

The late Aristide Massaccesi AKA Joe D'Amato started his film career as a cinematographer and moved into the direction in the 1970s. Possessing a keen commercial sense, he made countless low budget horror, erotic and pornographic productions, knowing that the box office was there regardless of what critics and moralists thought.

On a few occasions Massaccesi attempted to combine together his chosen genres. The results, on this showing, could probably best be described as, er, interesting.

Emanuelle in America starts off like a typical Emanuelle Nera adventure romp. Our globe trotting investigative reporter/photographer (Laura Gemser) goes off in search of a good story and joins a millionaire's harem. Cue some softcore lesbian frolicks in the pool and sauna (where Gemser pairs up with Lorraine De Selle of House on the Edge of the Park and Cannibal Ferox etc), along with the discovery of a cache of arms in the stable.

Then, approximately 30 minutes in, we have the first sign that something isn't quite right as one of the other harem ladies gets off on stroking a horse's cock… an incident that inexplicably passes more or less unremarked and proves to have absolutely no bearing on the remainder of the film.

Emanuelle makes her escape from the harem and goes to visit a decadent Italian count she met there at his Venetian home. Cue more softcore action, culminating in an orgy…

About an hour in and the horror element comes to the fore as Emanuelle investigates an exclusive tropical resort catering to yet more rich perverts. Wandering among the various hardcore encounters, she happens upon a couple fucking whilst scratchy, grain scenes of soldiers torturing and raping female prisoners play in the background.

Back in America, Emanuelle remarks to her editor that the missing girl in a photo looks like one of the women she saw on screen and decides to investigate. She soon discovers that a powerful politician is the man to see and quickly convinces him to show her more snuff, pretending that it turns her on.

The politician, however, is smarter than he lets on and spikes Emanuelle's drink with LSD. Inexplicably he then takes Emanuelle to an unspecified South/Central American locale to see some, er, location shooting, before returning her home.

Emanuelle is unsure whether it was real or a dream. Then her editor shows her the pictures.It was all too real. But the newspaper owner's refuse to publish this scoop of the century. So Emanuelle quits, going for some much needed R&R with her boyfriend on a primitive island… just as a film crew invade the paradise…

Okay, so the above contains spoilers. In this case, however, you really do want to know what you are letting yourself in for before you watch.

The effectiveness of the fake snuff footage cannot be denied. It is very rough viewing, even if it presents nothing that the hardened exploitation fan hasn't already seen in Salo or Cannibal Holocaust. My only quibble is the fakeness of a breast removal scene which, while gross, doesn't convince any more than the spike through the tits bit in Cannibal Ferox. (If you know better, and the effect is realistic, I really don't want to know how you know…)

The most disturbing aspect of the film, however, is not the snuff material, nor the horse cock incident, but the way in which these elements are casually deployed in an otherwise light, breezy piece complete with laughable dialogue, Nico Fidenco's porn-groove scoring and general kitsch/trash appeal.

Blue Underground's long-awaited Region 0 DVD presents Emanuelle in America in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio with a choice of English, French and Italian language tracks. The image has a grainy quality and the odd scratch here or there, though this is obviously the sort of film where a) those who buy it won't care, b) it's almost certainly going to be an improvement on an nth generation video dupe and c) imperfections often add in terms of grindhouse ambience.

Given that D'Amato is dead and Gemser in retirement following the death of her husband and co-star Gabrielle Tinti, the package of extras is impressive.

A 13 minute featurette using archive interviews with D'Amato and what appears to be re-worked material from an Italian documentary outlines the Black Emanuelle phenomenon and the cinematographer turned director's role in it, while a 11 minute audio interview with Gemser, which plays over a extensive gallery of stills, posters and glamour shots, provides an insight into her experiences and memories of the cycle.

Babylon Blue author David Flint contributes an informative on-screen essay, explaining the history of the unofficial Emmannuelle films, and useful profiles of D'Amato and Gemser.

While it's hard to recommend Emanuelle in America to 99% of the population, this is another quality release for the 1%

Cult Sirens profile of Laura Gemser.

Joe D'Amato page.