Extreme depravity, hardcore sex, and ultra violence: I'd heard that this sleazy offering from Italian trash-movie king Joe D'Amato (Aristide Massaccesi) was the epitome of exploitation, so I borrowed a copy from a friend and settled down to enjoy a prime slice of deviancy. Unfortunately, this supposedly spicy dollop of D'Amato sauce actually turned out to be rather bland.Laura Gemser plays Emanuelle, an investigative reporter determined to get her scoop, whatever the risk. Using her womanly wiles, she digs up the dirt on an organised-crime boss and his harem, some lust-crazed Venetian aristocrats, and a sex club for lonely women where our horny heroine eventually stumbles on the story of the century when she discovers a couple enjoying a genuine snuff movie.The first half of the movie is rather dull, packed with plentiful female nudity but hardly any of the 'rough stuff' that I had read so much about; only a brief scene involving a happy horse named Pedro is worthy of note.Eventually D'Amato hits his stride and, during an orgy scene, he delivers the first of many hardcore moments; from here on in, the XXX action is more plentiful, but the clumsy direction and editing means that they are far from erotic.At the end of the movie, Joe throws in a smattering of very gory pseudo-snuff footage for good measure, but this only serves to make the film feel even more disparate. The end result is neither a soft-core adventure, a hardcore porn movie or an all out gore-fest, but a disappointing (and often boring) half-assed mixture of all three.See it so that you can talk knowledgeably about the genre to like-minded sickos, but don't expect anything too amazing.

Any director whose claim to fame is the "scummiest, sleaziest ever to peer through a camera lens" deserves further investigation. With that recommendation in mind I logged onto IMDb in search of further info on another Italian overlord of bad taste, the late 'great' Joe D'amato. Just a quick perusal of his accomplishments confirmed yet another treasure of Euro trash cinema. The titles alone promised new forays into Pasta-land chunk blowing: PORNO HOLOCAUST? EMANUELLE & THE LAST CANNIBALS? EROTIC NIGHTS OF THE LIVING DEAD!? That last one immediately conjured up mental snapshots of decaying corpses not just content to eat their prey but exploit collective states of Rigor Mortis in creative ways.... Until I'm privileged by the sight of copulating cadavers I'll have to settle with one of D'amato's more conventional movies, which isn't to say EIA isn't overflowing with enough outrageous material to put a backed up septic tank to shame. Joe was a true scuzz bag, free of pretension and willing to pump every filth encrusted cent for all it was worth. He did have some talent but like contemporary sleaze master Jess Franco, was choosy about utilizing it. EIA though remains an inspired, disturbing, breezy classic of trash cinema that admirably hoodwinks its audience, constantly alternating between arousing and repellent.If a film embodied the exploitation ethic, this is it; an amalgamation of plot threads, taboos & genres, EIA seems to go everywhere and nowhere. Really a series colourful vignettes as opposed to a plot, an anthology of loosely connected perversions with our heroine starring in each(the better to cover so much base territory in 110 minutes.) It begins on a perfect note with Manhattan pin-ups parading around nude for the benefit of shutterbug Gemser. And then its off from one bizarre encounter to the next: snuff films, personal harems, stud mills- Emmanuel is there for all of it, ready to bed down at a moment's notice like the liberated woman she thinks she is, starting with a gun-toting Fundy out to save the world from uninhibited sexuality ("The cause of all the disasters of this century!"). E thinks quickly, and in perfect example of grind house logic, unzips her assailant's pants to show him what he's been missing (hilarious, but perfectly reasonable from the vacuum of porn rationale). After fellating herself to freedom she's off on her first assignment, infiltrating the private harem of a reclusive millionaire (there should've included titles for each segment) extending her thighs-wide-open policy to the other gals (including a nicely lensed underwater interlude replete with a wealth of gynaecological shots and sapphic gropings a 'plenty) before witnessing the wealthy libertine's illegal source of income (firearms) & one woman's seduction of a horse.Truly a jaw-dropping spectacle, even I can't dispute uncle Joe reaches a pinnacle of ultra-bad taste here, inducting us into the annals of bestiality with a scene so disgusting and campy, its almost funny in that John Waters sorta way("Yes Pedro, I'm coming, I heard you call....").WTFIt all comes to a grinding, puzzling halt by the time of E's snuff coverage and other hardcore frivolity. The graphic but unobtrusive style is refreshing. It recalls the golden age of smut and not the video wasteland of today. He captures the hi-jinx with verve, the polar opposite of today's wham-bam thank you ma'am approach. I wrote halt and not 'end' because that is exactly what it feels like, a dead, screeching halt. EIA has starting pt. and stopping pt. but no true beginning or end. Since it doesn't work itself up to a full-fledged plot I suppose this approach is appropriate. It's a slice of X-rated life which doesn't feature tidy resolutions or pat denouements. The topic of each tangent, sexual gratification and the increasing lengths characters go for it is simply paraded in the film's rambling method. The snuff sequence is just the natural endpoint really to this slippery 70's slope of 'anything goes' and this sequence alone qualifies EIA for chunk blower status. It's similar to the POV shots from SALO(another cheerful look into what gets the ruling class off) events recorded on once-removed, 8mm silent film that just emphasize it's brutal verisimilitude. It's uncomfortable and eerie how fast & skillfully the film mutates into something far thornier. Sneakily, Joe starts out mildly cheesecake then takes the sexual liberation rhetoric to its logical extreme (cheesecake>orgies>bestiality>snuff) indicting the entire shallow 'Free'Love movement for the self serving hedonism it became. The hallucinatory set-up, E being shown the unsavoury snuff ropes by a prominent US senator touring a banana republic is something out of a horror film. We've traipsed into an entirely different movie by this point. Here, the super-elite allow Emmanuel the commoner a glimpse behind the curtain into their preferred brand of R & R: Little girl, you ain't seen nuthin yet. The rotten core beneath the sunny outer front, just as fast drawing the blinds back with a wolfish smile- witnessing the depravity of bankers and suits almost daily now, snuff doesn't exactly seem far fetched.D'amato wasn't known for pacing so the episodic structure frees him from traditional narrative constraints (which might account for his uncharacteristic energy as he rushes from one outlandish sequence to the next). Some will still find it plodding no doubt but compared to something like EMANUELLE & THE LAST CANNIBALS this wad of sleaze is practically bouncing off the wall with horn-dog enthusiasm. As a capsule of the bygone era of grind house gold, EIA deserves a look-see for adventurous viewers on the look out for forgotten works of the Italian exploitation renaissance. It's a boundary ignorant piece of provocation that only could've been excreted during the 70's. And check out that soundtrack!

This is the best in the Emanuelle series. Laura Gemser is perfection in this film. Some are taken a back by the horse scene, but it's not as bad as described. In fact, the Caligula movie by D'amato is much more perverse. Regardless, this is a must see in the sexploitation genre. It does have a nice bit of social commentary about the treatment of women, so if you're smart enough and have read enough Judith Butler, there's a chance you can interpret this film beyond the sleaze element. Awesome film. Watch it! Plus the soundtrack is amazing. Nico Fidenco is at his best to say the least. If you're a fan of Jess Franco you will enjoy this movie. On the other hand it is not recommended for a first date with a prudish girl.

Ah, that Joe D'Amato...you can't help but watch his films no matter how curiously interesting or just plain bad they are. If it weren't for the explicit versions, I think most folks would forget about them soon after viewing, unless just gawking at naked gals here and there in the guise of a "legitimate film" is your kind of thing. The BIG problem with Emanuelle In America is that it can't make up its mind if it wants to be mere exploitation or hardcore, as it bounces back and forth but never really completes those goals.Li'l Miss Sexpot herself Laura Gemser is "Miss Emanuelle" who will travel anywhere and subject herself to any danger in order to get an ultimate story to further her journalistic endeavors (her sneaking around and snapping pics reminded me a lot of later Charlie's Angels adventures). She joins a harem of sorts and fondles women and watches bestiality, mingles with horny aristocrats, gets an expose of a women's pleasure resort (ah, finally a bunch of naked men in a movie), and shmoozes with bad men behind a snuff film ring. Yes, a film like this DOES need lots of sex to keep it going, but it's strange how much of it doesn't show up until much later.When sex scenes start, they end abruptly like a bad tease. During the sex, lots of jumpcuts jar the viewer so that it's not easy to get any pleasure out of viewing it. When hardcore footage appears, it usually never "finishes" (okay, there's a lack of money shots). When there ARE money shots, the scene has zipped by so fast you wonder if you were supposed to get excited or think that folks finish sexual encounters within one minute or less. Sex scenes in films like this are usually intended to arouse, and these leave you somewhat confused.Here is where I DEFEND something about this film: Those people who are only turned on by shaved, squeaky-looking pretty people in porn should not be so harsh to those of us who actually like a bit of body hair on men, or if women aren't so artistically trimmed. I have a feeling that most are bitching about the "hairy men" because of the bearded guy in the hut (in the Tarzan fantasy sequence). If anything, his hirsute appearance enhanced the energy of the too-brief scene, and I'm sure there are plenty of folks that appreciated a natural-looking man instead of plastic pretty boys. As for the women, it's funny how so many "reviewers" are calling the actresses unattractive -- seems there are too many men out there that have ridiculously high standards for women. I didn't find these women unattractive; if anything they seemed real and still even out of the league that most of the drooling heterosexual viewers would ever get in real life. You know the kind, guys with beer guts who wear hats and t-shirts that say "No Fat Chicks" and think that all women are inherently bisexual. I say HOORAY for '70s hairy porn, let's have more of it!For me, instead of being creeped out by physically follicle-blessed men, I was creeped out by the sordid footage of the snuff films. Instead of a glimpse of one, we are subjected to several scenes of it, and it reminds me of those harsh slasher films that get women naked before they are dismembered. Are we supposed to be aroused by the nudity AND the physical violence at the same time? Otherwise, why so much of it in this film? I say fill out the other basic hardcore sex scenes more, and less of the poles and hooks being used as sexual torture. And to think David Cronenberg got his inspiration for "Videodrome" from this film.....eek!So, take a look at Emanuelle In America so you can say you saw it, and if you got a kick out it, then it's actually okay. I saw it as a curiosity that had to be done and over with. It just really felt like a longgggg tease to me, so that I had to dig into my stash of hairy '70s porn afterwards to feel satiated!