Review for Emmanuelle In Soho

Gentlemen. This DVD release heralds a new yardstick, or barometer if you prefer, against which virtually any other film, of any genre and from any era can be measured. It represents an all time cinematic low; turgid, tasteless, lack-lustre, cheesy, wooden, sleazy in all the wrong ways, it really is just about as grubby a movie as you will ever be able to lay your mitts on and signals the last gasp of an era of British film-making that saw itself descend in a sharp trajectory from not quite right Carry On's (England, Emmanuelle etc) through the confessions film, right down to 'Rosie Dixon Night Nurse' through to 'Playbirds' and 'Come Play with me' to the final awful depths that is...'Emmanuelle in Soho'.


Even the title is incongruous in the extreme. Emmanuelle was supposed to be a sophisticated European animal, and not a soho tart, lurking in the shadows of the peep show signs off London's Berwick Street.


Funded by sleaze ball extraordinaire, skin magazine mogul David Sullivan, the whole thing is so wrong that, at moments, it almost feels right. The version I got sent (on a hand-written DVD-R) seems to be a cut version without the four minute documentary about Soho in the late 70's at its start. That was made for the US market and would be interesting to see. But it's not included here.

So it's straight into the film itself. Bad dialogue and a plot not even quarter-baked, as well as grimy looking 16mm footage clearly shot with little care, means that the film makes the Confessions movies look like cultural masterpieces.

'Emmanuelle in Soho' has the distinction of being amongst the last theatrically released movies of the British sexploitation era. Apparently it was a huge hit (amongst a certain sort) when it was first released in UK cinemas in 1981. Unbelievable, but true. But then it was a time when British cinema was on its very last legs.

Mandy Miller plays the least sophisticated Emmanuelle ever committed to screen, with her Nolan's hair-do and blue eye shadow perfectly set off with the de rigueur suspenders, an essential ingredient of British soft-porn of the day.

Far more alluring is side-kick Julie Lee (pictured on the front of the box) who, until she opens her mouth for some good old fashioned Yorkshire dialogue, provides a diverting alternative. This was her only starring role. She died in a car accident just two years after this was released.

She auditions for a part in a nude revue at a seedy theatre and her child-man photographer husband with an 80's bouffant (Paul) ends up mixed up with Emmanuelle and a seedy unscrupulous agent (played by John M. East for minimum laughs) who is quickly seduced by Emmanuelle, and who is soon ripping off the weedy photographer.

Wife Kate auditions for a part in play called 'Hang about Sebastian' and impresses the theatre director, a campy old queen. 'We all undress and touch each other, so the fellas get use to feeling and touching naked ladies' is how she summarises auditions for Sebastian. There's a particularly grim display of fine British talent when we are treated to a line of strippers dancing naked apart from yellow raincoats. How British! (Plenty of natural white flesh and hair as nature intended. No airbrushed models here!)


Paul eventually discovers that Bill is ripping him off and decides to blackmail him. In the meantime, Bill suggests that Paul throws a kinky party and films his friends' exploits. At the party Emmanuelle does a striptease set (to disco-cheese 'Don't Let Go') and Paul secretly turns his camera on Bill who has secretly been 'liaising' with secretary.

Hurrah! Blackmailed into doing the right thing, Bill cuts Paul into more of the action. Result! (I suppose the nearest thing to a Disney-like happy ending in such a sleazy movie).

With some time to fill to make up minimum running time, the film concludes with shots of Kate driving around London, having occasional sex with the lead from the play. Nice.

The final East/Sullivan production to show up on the big screen was 'Hellcat-Mud Wrestlers' which did the rounds alongside Campsite Massacre. In theory, that movie should be found on this disc with the main feature but wasn't included on my check disc. Oh well.

Without having seen that, I really can't recommend this. Other than as a sample of just how bad things got. We should be grateful that British cinema soon woke back up and eradicated such puerility forever. Of historic (or hysteric?) interest only.