Movie Review: Black Emanuelle (1975)

For those that don’t know (probably almost everybody), the success of the French Emmanuelle movies starring Sylvia Kristel led to an endless supply of imitators. And of course some of the first to get in on ripping off a popular foreign movie were the Italians. It’s what they do. Doesn’t matter if it’s Mad Max, Escape from New York, or a softcore sex film, they’ll rip if off.

But the gimmick here is that she’s black. And also her name is spelled differently.

She’s also not actually black. I believe Laura Gemser would be considered South Asian, as she’s Indonesian. But whatever. This movie doesn’t paint black Africans in the best light, so I think things might have been worse if they had cast a black actress.

As an additional gimmick, I guess, there are some hardcore shots in the movie, but this might have been the case with some of the French Emmanuelle movies. I’m not sure.

So it’s what you’d expect from an Em(m)anuelle plot. A beautiful woman travels abroad and starts relationships with men and women, this time being a husband and wife, but she also seeks action elsewhere.