Emmanuelle and the White Slave Trade (1978)

This time around Emmanuelle is a journalist traveling to Africa to get an interview with an elusive businessman living there.  Working her wiles she manages to gain access to his home and his bedroom.  Helping him “convince” a client to sign a big business deal she also gets his cooperation and her interview.  While in Africa Emmanuelle notices a strange girl being pushed around in a wheelchair.  This leads her to back to NYC and a big time prostitution ring, which is her next story.  Going under cover she manages to sleep her way to another big story, though this time barely avoiding a lobotomy for her troubles.  The movie ends with her using her “assets” to get make good her escape on a fishing boat. 

This is one of the better Emmanuelle movies, at least as far as the plot goes.  There is a decent story here with Emmanuelle being an investigative reporter tracking down all sorts of bad guys.  The first part of the movie with here in Africa is fairly entertaining with the exotic locations.  The best part is that it isn’t stock footage, as the cast is right there with the animals in many of the shots.  When the movie heads back to New York City it slows down really badly.  Though doing my research I discovered that those shots were pulled from another movie starring the same actress, which explains all the boring walking around the city shots we are treated to.  But once the action moves to the exclusive retreat where Emmanuelle discovers the prostitution ring things pick right back up.  I won’t say the movie is incredibly exciting, but there are some fun bits with a strange man in drag and a bowling alley fight that had me cracking up.  Again as is the case with the best examples of the Emmanuelle series this one has just enough story to make the scenes in between the naked people rolling around interesting. 

Lets talk some technical stuff now.  This is a very well shot movie, especially the scenes on location in Africa.  They do a great job of capturing the natural beauty of not only the ladies in the cast, but of the exotic locations as well.  That said some of the dubbing leaves a lot to be desired, especially their attempts at New York accents.  But then when watching an Italian movie you expect some bad dubbing, so I’ll cut them some slack.  That said this movie was almost ruined for me with the terrible editing of the footage in New York City.  As I’ve already mentioned this was cut in from another Emmanuelle movie, and done so really poorly.  You get way too many useless scenes of her walking around the city streets that do nothing to move the story along.  This makes for a painful middle section to what is otherwise a fast paced and fun little bit of sleaze and nearly ruins the whole movie.

In spite of the flaws I have to say this is a pretty decent entry into the series.  Though I’m not really sure how much appeal it will have to those who aren’t fans of the Emmanuelle movies.  For more information on where you can pick this up check out Severin’s website at http://www.severin-films.com/

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer

© Copyright 2009 John Shatzer