Black Emmanuelle/White Emmanuelle (1976)

For those not familiar with the Emmanuelle movies these are basically movies that have some sort of plot that accommodates beautiful women taking their clothes off and rolling around on screen with each other and the male cast.  A surprising number of these movies do actually manage a coherent and interesting plot, so there is something to watch between the sex scenes.  Unfortunately Black Emmanuelle/White Emmanuelle isn’t one of those movies.  The plot here is very flimsy and consists of a woman living in Egypt with her spiritual advisor (played by Al Cliver of Zombie fame!).  The woman is having a famous supermodel, the model’s photographer boyfriend, and her daughter come to her home for a holiday.  Other than a boat trip down the Nile and a crazy old actor nothing much happens, except for one random scene of various cast members rolling around naked after another. 

I’ve seen some of the other Emmanuelle movies and I understand what they are.  These are just basically sleazy little nudie movies with lots of simulated sex scenes.  But again the problem here is that many of the other movies have a decent plot to set up the sleaze, which is what I’ve always enjoyed the most about the Emmanuelle series.  This movie is seriously lacking in plot, which makes it boring and difficult to get thru.  Nudity can only carry a movie so far, no matter how attractive the ladies are.  In fact the only thing that comes close to a plot are the nonsensical ramblings of the spiritual advisor, who keeps talking about finding ultimate pleasure and some valley where the grass will contain your happiness or something.  Maybe I guess you are supposed to smoke it or something, but the long scenes where he debates these philosophies with the others only makes the movie even slower.  The one interesting character is the photographer, who is so over the top and unpleasant that he is more of a caricature then character.  He has this obsession with making his model pose with dead bodies that is very distasteful. 

Now I’ve spent most of the review ripping on the movie.  But I do have a couple of nice things to say about it.  From a technical standpoint the movie is shot very well and looks really good.  The camera work captures the beauty of the locations and makes great use of the locations that they filmed in and around.  I also though that the score of the movie works nicely and brings a lot of the local “flavor” in.  Between the locations and the music this gives Black Emmanuelle/White Emmanuelle an exotic feel that serves the movie well.  Though it still isn’t enough to overcome what is basically a very long and uninteresting 90 plus minutes. 

Even the best movies of the Emmanuelle movies are going to be an acquired taste and this entry is easily the weakest movie I’ve seen of the bunch.  I really can’t recommend Black Emmanuelle/White Emmanuelle to any but the hardcore fans of the series.  For more information on where you can pick this up go to the Severin website at http://www.severin-films.com/

1 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2009 John Shatzer