Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals

Laura Gemser is one of cinema’s greatest beauties. Unfortunately films like Black Emanuelle and its sequels tend to be ignored by critics. David Thomson is unlikely to write a book extolling the virtues of her pert bottom as he did so recently with Nicole Kidman. There will be no star on Hollywood’s walk-of-fame. Neither will there be an appearance on Inside the Actors Studio with James Lipton asking sycophantic questions while an audience of wannabe’s dream of being in her place. Such is the lot of a B-movie actress. When Kate Winslet strips off for The Reader she wins awards and is commended for her ‘bravery,’ while Gemser and others like her are ghettoised as being little better than porn stars. But what is The Reader except a classier version of the 70’s Nazi sexploitation movie? They should have called it Winslet: She Wolf of the SS.

Gemser made a brief appearance alongside Sylvia Kristel in Emanuelle 2, Francis Giacobetti’s dream-like sequel to the historic, but otherwise uninteresting original. Gemser was immediately picked out to star in an unofficial spin-off franchise beginning with Black Emanuelle. These Italian movies removed the soft-focus Ferrero-Roche TV advertisement style of the French films and instead become sleazy versions of James Bond films with exotic locations and plenty of action, only this time involving nudity instead of violence. Gemser’s Emanuelle (note the missing m) is a photo-journalist willing to travel the world and take her clothes off in pursuit of a good story.

Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals begins in New York. The opening credits feature a few shots of the World Trade Centre illustrating how even a soft-core porno cannibal movie can attain an air of melancholy with the passing of time. Emanuelle is working undercover in a mental institution; appropriately enough for the film is quite mad. A nurse is attacked by a patient and bitten. The girl in question was found in the Amazon, mute, and seemingly raised in the wild. Emanuelle has a contact within the hospital who allows her to see the girl. Apparently mental patients are not issued underwear, so Emanuelle photographs her half-naked, much to the delight of her newspaper Editor, and Nelson, the office pervert.

Emanuelle notices an unusual tattoo and seeks advice from Professor Mark Lester, an expert in Amazonian culture. Mark treats Emanuelle to some fast food and then takes her home to watch a documentary of cannibals at play. After being treated to such a hot date it is no surprise that Emanuelle puts out, though we never see anything until later. It is here that the atrocious dubbing comes into its own. The actors voicing Gemser and her co-star are clearly reading from a script. Now there is nothing wrong with actors having a script in front of them when they dub over a foreign film, unless you can hear them pause as they turn the page.

“You are fascinating Emanuelle, but I didn’t intend (pause, turns over page)… to fall in love with you.”

Mark agrees to accompany Emmanuelle on an expedition to the area where the girl was found. Before she leaves she meets her boyfriend and they find possibly the most uncomfortable place in New York for a sexual encounter.. They choose a spot down by the Hudson’s rubble-strewn shore, where her lover takes her without removing, or seemingly opening his trousers. It looks so cold you can hardly blame him. After their little scene by the sea, they drive past a cinema playing Kentucky Fried Movie, a welcome shout-out to John Landis and the Abrahams/Zucker team’s spoof of B-movies and bad TV. Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals could almost be one of the productions made by Samuel L Bronkowitz, KFM’s hack producer, and there is no higher compliment.

Director Joe D’Amato proves that as well as ripping off Emmanuelle, he can also steal from more cerebral filmmakers by borrowing the love scene from Nic Roeg’s Don’t Look Now. Emanuelle travels to the airport in the back of a taxi and her mind travels back to the bedroom as D’Amato goes arty and switches between the past and the present. When Mark and Emanuelle reach their destination, the family who found the girl direct them upriver towards a Christian mission. Mark knows the family and is delighted to see their daughter Isabel has grown up. Isabel has the horn for Mark, and probably for Emanuelle as well, so she accompanies them on their journey.

At a watering hole, Emanuelle and Isabel thoughtfully wash each other’s naked bodies. There is a cinematic rule which has until now remained unwritten and that is the addition of a comedy monkey or ape to a film immediately improves it by 20%. See Speed Racer for proof. A chimpanzee (do chimpanzee’s even live in the Amazon?) turns up and plays with their possessions. At first he puts a pair of sunglasses on his head. Then he gets hold of a pack of Marlboro’s and puts a cigarette in his mouth the wrong way round. Eventually he figures it out, picks up a lighter and takes a puff. Thankfully the girls notice the chimp before he gets hold of one of the rifles, correctly assembles it and starts taking pot-shots at them.

Soon the film switches genre, from soft-core to horror film. As they land ashore a python falls from a tree and lands around Emanuelle’s neck. If there is ever a scene that epitomises why B-movie actresses should command more respect it is this one, because that looks very much like a real python wrapping its way around her neck. And those look very much like the real insides of a snake when a passing hunter blows its head apart with a high-powered rifle. PETA weren’t paying attention when this film was made. You have a chimp smoking Marlboro’s and a snake getting whacked by a sniper. I guess they didn’t have the same clout in the 70’s as they do now.

What follows will be familiar to anybody who has ever seen Cannibal Holocaust, though D’Amato’s film predates that by three years. The group discover the tribe they are searching for, but have to fight for their lives as they are hunted down. Despite its subject matter Emmanuelle and the Last Cannibals now seems rather quaint; a reminder of a lost age before video and hardcore pornography made films like these obsolete. You’ll see worse gore in an episode of Silent Witness on the BBC and more nudity on Channel 5. Maybe it’s time for a remake, starring Kate Winslet of course.

Kevin Sturton