Sunday, April 28, 2024

Carry on Emannuelle (1978)

 Well, after 15 years I finally finished that Grindhouse movie set I bought at Boarders Books and Music. Tarantino chose to close it up in a kind of meta fashion with movie #20. 'Carry On Emmanuelle' is the 30th in the series of 'Carry On' films, bawdy sex comedies of the Benny Hill school which spanned from 1958's 'Carry On Sargent' to 1992's 'Carry On Columbus'. I'd heard of these but never seen one before, I was aware they spoofed all kinds of topics. What they are saterizing here are the 'Emmanuelle' films, a series of internationally successful French erotic dramas featuring a sexually adventures woman named Emmanuelle.

Here Emmanuelle (the lovely Suzanne Danielle) is married to the newly appointed French ambassador to England (Kennth Williams). The ambassador is impotent so his wife seeks her pleasure with the household staff and various big wigs who visit, including the Prime Minister. Larry Dann, a recurring player in these since the 50's, is an obsessive one night stand of Emmanuelle's who documents her hanky panky resulting in a massive public sex scandle remiscent of the real life "Profuma Affair" of 1960's British politics. 

Audiences and critics were exhausted of this series by 1978, the film scores only 17% on Rotton Tomatoes and they didn't make another one of these until 1992, which would turn out to be the last. However I enjoyed this, I'll take lower tier Bristish spoof over lower tier American spoof almost any day. Suzanne Danielle is quite enchanting, she sells the thing, if they hadn't cast her right I can see this film being kind of awful. **

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