Vanessa (1977)

Vanessa (1977) is another of those films that came out in the wake of the success of Emmanuelle (1974) and its sequels, when it briefly looked as if soft core porn was going mainstream and respectable.   A German production, Vanessa is not dissimilar to another Emmanuelle-inspired movie, the Australian made Felicity, which came out at around the same time.  Both involve young women thrust from exclusive all-girl schools into the heady (not to mention hedonistic) milieu of seventies Hong Kong.  The  titular heroine of Vanessa leaves her convent school, (staffed by teachers and nuns who still believe in corporal punishment for demeanours such as being caught looking at nudes in books about Ancient Rome), finds herself in Jong Kong after the death of her last living relative, her Uncle Richard, where she finds that she has inherited a chain of brothels and a plantation.  From there the plot follows a familiar path of the title character's sexual awakening, as she is introduced to various aspects of sex, including lesbianism (obligatory in seventies sex movies) - although she never actually loses her virginity - while various dramatic sun-plots unfold around her.  Chief of these involve the plantation's manager, who is contesting her inheritance with the claim that he is actually Uncle Richard's illegitimate son and the attempts of both said manager and another older family friend to seduce her (the friend's wife is being shagged by the plantation manager).  Along the way there's also some business involving a mystic and an attempt by the jealous girlfriend of the plantation manager to use a form of voodoo against Vanessa.  (She thrusts a knife into the groin of a doll fashioned after the girl, causing her intense vaginal pain).

Vanessa comes over like a compendium of adolescent male sexual fantasies, with its constant parade of naked young girls, who always seem to avoid actually having sex with anyone, flashbacks involving lesbianism, female masturbation and spanking.  At one point the mystic demonstrates his powers by having non-physical remote sex with Vanessa whilst they sit at opposite ends of a dining table - which of course sends the girl off into a series of orgasmic fantasies.  The film tries to emulate the visual style of Emmanuelle, with lots of soft-focus camera work and 'arty' camera angles to give the whole thing a dream-like sort of feel.  Unfortunately, though, none of this helps raise the film above the level of mediocrity, with its over-familiar plot, languid pace and not especially interesting characters.  It never really makes anything of its Hong Kong locations, let alone the fact that Vanessa is heir to a chain of bordellos,  and none of the cast seem particularly enthusiastic about any of the antics they are required to perform.  Anton Diffring, as Major Cooper, the family friend who tries to have his wicked way with Vanessa, is, in the English language version, dubbed with an English accent straight out of a thirties drama about the Raj, making his performance seem even more detached.  Olivia Pascal in the title role (in her debut) is certainly attractive enough, but never really convinces as an ingénue.  The biggest problem the film has is that comes across as just too, well, respectable, seemingly content to hint at sexual depravities and deviancies, rather than actually show them properly, for fear of offending that new mainstream porn audience it was clearly aiming for.  In truth, its Australian rival, Felicity, although itself a pretty mild sex comedy, is actually far livelier and therefore more entertaining, than Vanessa.