Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade (1978)

The second Emmanuelle-inspired adult movie I watched this past weekend, Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade (1978) was the last of the Italian made 'Black Emanuelle' series to be directed by Joe D'Amato, who directed the bulk of the series.  In truth, beyond the similar name for the lead character, (note the slight difference in spelling, for legal reasons), these films have little in common with the original Emmanuelle series, which involved the erotic exploits of a French diplomat's wife.  By contrast, this rival series concerned the adventures of an investigative journalist played by Laura Gemser, who has the byline of 'Emanuelle' for her articles.  Over the course of the series she investigates all manner of subject matter, including snuff films and cannibals, with her globe-trotting investigations always involving her having to take her clothes off and have sex - with, men, women, herself, even a horse gets a handjob in one instalment, although not by Emanuelle herself, to be fair - at regular intervals.  The films tended to involve somewhat meandering plots, with Emanuelle spending the first part investigating one thing, gangsters, for example, which inadvertently lead her into investigating something more serious and/or exotic.  Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade kicks off in Kenya, with the titular heroine trying to get an interview with an ex-pat US gangster, which involves her and a female friend pretending to be air hostesses, running naked through the bush and having drug fuelled sex, not to mention various other sexual asides not directly related to the main plot.  In the course of all this, she spots a suspicious character at the airport, escorting a girl in a wheelchair, who later turns out to be perfectly healthy, with the gangster telling her that the man is involved in trafficking girls for the white slave trade.  Naturally, Emanuelle decides to follow him, which leads her back to the US and a brothel (which she infiltrates) catering to high level politicians and diplomats.

At which point the film, as is often the case with this series, takes a somewhat darker turn than you'd ever see in a genuine 'Emmanuelle' film, or any of their many imitators, involving murder and Emanuelle herself being rouged up and sexually assaulted by a gang of heavies working for the madame running the brothel.  This section of the film is actually an attempt to cash in on another then popular sex movie, The French Woman (1977), which had been directed by Just Jaekin, who had also directed the first 'Emmanuelle' movie and was inspired by the life story of an infamous French brothel keeper Madame Claude.  Indeed, Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade even names the keeper of its brothel 'Madame Claude', just to make out sure the link is clear to the audience.  This latter part of the film underlines the fundamental difference between the 'Black Emanuelle' series and both the original series whose name it invokes and that series many other imitators.  They eschew the semi-respectable artiness of these films in favour of a much harder edged and grittier approach.  This Emanuelle has no time for wistful explorations of feminine sensuality, more often than not treating her sexuality as simply another tool to be used in her quest for the truth via her investigations.  As played by Gemser, she is no ingénue or innocent schoolgirl experiencing her sexual awakening at the hands of some experienced older man.  On the contrary, she is a capable career woman more than able to look after herself - unlike most of the heroines of contemporary sex movies, when in peril, she doesn't wait for some man to rescue her, instead falling back on her own resources to get out of the situation.  All of which makes it sound as if I'm trying to argue that Gemser's Emanuelle is some kind of symbol of female empowerment: a porno feminist icon.  Make no mistake, however, the films still objectify her as a sex object, but at least the character has some control over this objectification, using it to her own advantage.

The look of the film reflects the grittier edge of the series, with the dreamy soft focus photography and leisurely pace of the official series discarded in favour of a more realistic, hard edged approach, far more like contemporary Italian crime thrillers.  The subject matter of many of the films and its lurid presentation is reminiscent of another Italian genre, the mondo movie.  D'Amato directed films across a wide gumut of popular Italian movie genres and this is reflected in the subject matter of his 'Black Emanuelle' films.  While not, perhaps, possessed of a visual style on a par with many of his contemporaries directing Italian genre films, D'Amato's direction is nonetheless efficient and very direct, making Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade (and the other films in the series that he directed) a very easy film for the audience to follow.  There's always something going on to hold your attention, even when Emanuelle is fully clothed.  Gemser, as ever, is very watchable in the lead role, bringing plenty of charisma and screen presence.  As ever, her real-life husband, Gabrielle Tinti, co-stars, (this time as the brothel's procurer).  While not the strongest, or most original, entry in the series, (prostitution of various kinds had been covered several times in earlier films), Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade is an entertaining enough piece of exploitation and, in my opinion, far more enjoyable than most other Emmanuelle cash-ins being made around the same time, which slavishly tried to copy the original's format and style,