EMANUELLE: BLACK VELVET (1976)
aka BLACK EMMANUELLE, WHITE EMMANUELLE
aka VELUTTO NERO
Label: Full Moon Features
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 93 Minutes
Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 Surround with No Subtitles Options
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2.35:1)
Director: Brunello Rondi
Cast: Gabriele Tinti, Laura Gemser, Nieves Navarro, Al Cliver, Annie Belle
Directed by frequent Federico Fellini co-writer Brunello Rondi (8 1/2, La Dolce Vita) the softcore flick Emanuelle: Black Velvet (1976) again stars the gorgeous cult-goddess Laura Gemser (Women's Prison Massacre), but not as the usual intrepid, horny photographer named Emanuelle, for some odd reason in this entry she portrays a horny fashion model named Laura, on a photo shoot with her knock-out gal pal Pina (Annie Belle, Absurd) in Egypt, along with her fashion photographer boyfriend Carlo (Gabrielle Tinti, Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals). Carlo is a bit of a mean-spirited tyrant, regularly calling her a bitch, forcing her to pose semi-nude next to the carcass of a dead dog, a huge pile of dung, and later demanding she cozy up to the corpses of massacred Arabs that they happen upon in the desert. After all that he then rapes her when she gets a bit too mouthy for his liking, which in true Emanuelle/
exploitation fashion turns into a semi-consensual male fantasy.
When the women grow tired of Carlos' cruel treatment they strand him in the desert and drive to the estate of Pina's mother Crystal (Nieves Navarro, Sex and Black Magic) and equally promiscuous sister Magda (Ziggy Zanger, Black Cobra). The mother is in the thrall of younger mystic guru named Horatio (Al Cliver, Fulci's Zombie), and both she and Magda are banging the hired help, a lucky fella named Ali (Tarek Al Nancy, The Braves). Rounding out the circle is a failed actor turned charlatan spiritual leader named Hal (Feodor Chaliapin Jr., Inferno), who seems to have a predilection for teenage boys.
This entry is even more plotless than most of the other Black Emanuell entries, but what it has going for it is some arthouse style and attractive Egyptian desert scenery courtesy of cinematographer Gastone di Giovanni, The Night Evelyn Came Out of Her Grave), with editing by Bruno Mattei (Rats: Night of Terror), accentuated by a moody, atmospheric score from composer Alberto Baldan Bembo (Nude For Satan).
The casting is also rather interesting as well, onscreen we have a pair of real-life Euro-cult couples by way of Gemser and Tinto, and Belle and Cliver. Sadly, neither of which elevates the bland hook-ups in this flick, much like Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade the sensuality of the softcore thrills are pretty flaccid and without chemistry, but both Laura Gemser and short-cut blonde Annie Belle are both outstanding beauties, and their nude time onscreen solo and together does not go unappreciated! Something I thought was weird was that Gemser loses a lot of the agency of her previous Black Emanuelle films, the character is not as strong, and actually does not have all that much to do except look splendid for the camera, which she does. We also have Lucio Fulci regular Al Cliver (The Beyond) who plays his mystic like a too-stoned hippie lost in his own thoughts, but somehow it works for the character and for the vibe of the film.
Lacking a coherent story, there is no story here, the film just sort of washes over you, with a few sequences that comes off like a fever dream. The best of the bunch being a ritual ceremony in an Egyptian temple where Horatio has hypnotized everyone, and Gemser's character inexplicably sacrifices a goat and then drinks its blood before erupting into an erotic spasm of the floor, then attempting to burn her face off with a torch! For my money there's just not enough of these sort of shocker moments, but Gemser being forced to pose nude with a decaying dead pooch was pretty bizarre, as was seeing Nieves Navarro catch a face full of spunk during an otherwise unremarkable softcore blowjob.
Audio/Video: Emanuelle: Black Velvet (1976) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Full Moon Features in 1080p, advertised as being remastered from the originally camera negative. Colors and skin tones look natural, black levels are adequate, and there is a layer of grain but it looks to have been at least partially scrubbed away.
Audio comes by way of English dubbed Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo and 5.1 surround. This is the longer European version and, as such, will occasionally lapse into Italian language with English subtitles where there is no English-dub, but there are no subtitles for the English dialogue. Its beyond time for Full Moon to get onboard with uncompressed audio and subtitles across their catalog. The dubbed-dialogue at times has an odd echoey quality, as of the dub were recorded in a bathroom or large room, its not ruinous but its there. That said, the dialogue was never hard to understand, though the Foley work goes a bit overboard with the howling wind, but the weird, cool score from Alberto Baldan Bembo sounds fine in the mix. The only extras are 8-minutes of euro-cult trailers.
Special Features:
- Trailers: Barbed Wire Dolls (1 min), Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun (3 min), Naked Girl Murdered in the Park (1 min), Satanic Sisters (1 min), Voodoo Passion (1 min), Women in Cell Block 9 (1 min)
Emanuelle: Black Velvet (1976), much like Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade (1978), is not the cream of the BLack Emanuelle series, but it is a offbeat, artfully lensed entry that seems to be going for more of an erotic arthouse vibe than most of these flicks attempt, and I kind of love that about it. If you're a fan of smutty Euro-cult this is an interesting entry, and seeing Laura Gemser and Annie Belle onscreen together is a absolute fire, and it's got enough weird stuff in it, like Gemser drinking sacrificial goat blood, to keep the exploitation fans happy.
More screenshots from the Blu-ray:
