Laura Gemser, the Black Emanuelle

The Italian genre cinema divides in several categories. The great ones (like movies by Leone, Bava, Argento and others), the interesting ones (the good spaghetti westerns, gialli, poliziotteschi and other genre movies), the boring ones (the bad SWs and other genres) and the very dirty ones. The Gemser movies are a part of the last category. Her movies are very sleazy and not only that you feel the movies are dirty, I myself feel dirty when I watch some of it. It's also a case of a few gialli (like Slaughter Hotel, French Sex Murders or Giallo a Venezia), I believe also the bad poliziotteschi and I feel some of the cheap spaghettis are also that nasty. I felt that they are not just bad, but it's also bad to watch them. Strange feeling, but when I saw The Son of Django (with Gabriele Tinti, who was also in all the Emanuelles), I felt exactly that way, I somehow regretted watching it. There's no sex, not much brutality, yet it was really a disturbing movie.

The Emanuelle movies are simple. Emanuelle is an undercover journalist (or underwear journalist? No, she wears no underwear. I know it wasn't funny.), who fucks her way through some complots to get a succesful article in the magazine she works in. That's basically all.

George Eastman having fun

I didn't watch many of them. I actually saw only two. It's strange - I despise them, I know they are over the top with their unexciting sex scenes, their opened sexuality is also over the top (Emanuelle would fuck not just anybody, men or women, but anything), they portray rape as something sexy, they are very misogynic and above all, really stupid. But sometimes I get in the mood to watch some of it. I try to avoid it, but yes, I have already watched two of them and I'm afraid I'll watch some more in the future. Why? Well, Laura Gemser is very beautiful and yes, she was very wooden, but yet very likable.

If I will watch some more, I would certainly skip the sex scenes and just watch the stupid plot. To save time and to have a good fun. Emanuelle and the white slave trade was so bad it was funny. If there weren't those ugly hairy whores all over the film, it would be more enjoyable.

I would never watch any of the original Emmanuelle series with Sylvia Kristel, they don't seem that funny as the Italian rip-offs. Not even when considering a Sylvia Kristel-Laura Gemser sex scene, that started Laura's career, in one of the French films. Actually, of the "true" Emmanuelles, the only one, that is really hot for me, is Krista Allen. I'm not saying that I would watch her Emmanuelle in Space series. But back to the Italian rip-off with the single m.

One of the disturbing things in those movies are the hardcore inserts. If it was intended to make it more exciting, it actually didn't help. And it's clearly visible that the girl isn't Laura Gemser. And another disturbing thing is the lousy Nico Fidenco music, that was also present in the sex comedies with Edwige Fenech. Those were vulgar and stupid, but not sleazy.

Emanuelle movies are not a genre itself, the series went through all (s)exploitation genresof the 70s and 80s - erotic drama, erotic comedy, WIP movies, cannibal movies, nunsploitation, criminal movies, mondo documentary. Gemser even appeared in a late giallo, Murder Obsession by Riccardo Freda, the man who allowed Mario Bava to direct himself in the late 50s. She tried to do other movies than just Emanuelle, like Horror Safari, Endgame or Ator, the Fighting Eagle. But the last two mentioned movies were also directed by Joe d'Amato, the director of most Emanuelle films.

She tried to do something else, appearing in a few more acceptable movies. I've actually seen only Crime Busters, the Bud Spencer - Terence Hill comedy, but it's my favorite of them and Gemser doesn't spoil it. In her other non-trashy movies, she appeared alongside Orson Welles, Toshiro Mifune or Richard Boone. Quite unexpected! But she couldn't escape the stigma of the hot girl from trashy movies. Not even by changing her name to Moira Chen for the bigger movies.

After the death of her husband Gabriele Tinti, whose career was also destroyed by the series (partly due to his jealousy, because he was always watching the love scenes of her wife, so he had to be in every single Emanuelle movie), she retired. I've read somewhere that she lives with George Eastman (who was also present in several Emanuelle movies), or was living with him some time ago. But there was no confirmation of this claiming. So the real Gemser is living in privacy. The by many fans beloved Laura Gemser lives in the Emanuelle series.