Laure (1976)** (out of 4)Co-director and co-writer Emmanuelle Arsan is the one and only Emmanuelle who would write the "autobiography", which would then be turned into a massive hit by Just Jaeckin and be "reworked" so many times over the years that most people will forget that the story wasn't originally meant to tackle perverts in rain coats. This "serious" tale has the beautiful Annie Belle playing Laure, a young woman who goes around the Philippines on a anthropological expedition to find a lost tribe. Her boyfriend (Al Cliver) wants her to be "free" so he recommends she have sex with every man and woman that she can. Also known as FOREVER EMMANUELLE, this is yet another sexploitation film that features non-stop sex and nudity but at the same time after the first few scenes you can't help but get bored. This movie here is a complete bore from pretty much start to finish because there's nothing ever going on that makes any sense nor does anything happen to make you feel as if you're using your time for a good thing. This movie is so incredibly pointless that after the first thirty-minutes or so you begin to wonder why you're wasting so much time with so many movies like this. Joe D'Amato would end up making countless Emanuelle films and the majority of them were bad but at least they had some sort of exploitation going for them. When the group enters the jungle to locate the tribes nothing happens except it gives Laure more people to sleep with. At least D'Amato would have had some people either eaten or killed. There's no question that Belle is a beautiful woman so seeing her naked and in countless sex scenes is going to be the main draw. Cliver is always fun to watch even when he sleepwalks through a part as he does here but that might be unfair to say since whoever is dubbing him does such a poor job. The sex scenes are never very erotic and the dumbest sequence has to come when a transvestite picks Belle and Cliver up in his/her helicopter and an orgy breaks out in the front seat. The film runs 91-minutes and if you want nothing but nudity then this might work for you but if you demand at least a somewhat interesting plot then you're going to be sitting through some pretty boring stuff that never adds up to much. As to who really directed this thing is still up in the air but Arsan gets credit for it and if she was the director then it certainly wasn't her field as she never brings the material to life and things just come off rather cold and bland.

I've been strangely attracted to this film since I saw it on Showtime sometime in the early 80's. I say strangely because it is rather a ludicrous bit of soft-core fluff, a genre I'm not particularly interested in. The dialogue is pompously and nonsensically philosophical (making sense, no doubt, only to it's Franco-Italian producers)and the plot completely extraneous. What it does achieve is a wonderfully hypnotic and thoroughly pleasant mood. The scenery (the beautiful Philippines), soft-focus nudity and wonderful score all contribute to a strange and extremely watchable exercise in a sort of film making seldom seen today. It is truly one of my great "guilty pleasures". I was fortunate enough to find it on an old laserdisc and have watched it more times than I think is healthy. A worthwhile moodpiece.

Despite some really scenic locations in the orient and some sporadically energetic music by Franco Micalizzi, this film doesn't quite reach the level of Joe D'Amato's similar efforts while staying just about as trashy. The author of the original book "Emmanuelle: The Joys of a Woman", Emmanuelle Arsan, directed and had a smallish role in this film, which mostly pornographically showcases a very young Annie Belle as she gets in a variety of oddball sexual situations. Her boyfriend, played by ZOMBIE's Al Cliver actually approves of her sleeping around and even persuades her to continue her practices even after the two of them are married! Orso Maria Guerrini drops by as a professor who is oh so usually married simultaneously to two women, one of whom is played by Arsan herself. Despite beginning promisingly and having a few hilarious lines of dialog like "can you see me with the naked eye?" ... "I can see you better naked!", the film shambles along plotlessly up until the less-than-spectacular finale. Much like D'Amato's EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS, the main characters are all in search of some lost tribe, but don't get your hopes up, there's no violence at all in this film, and not much sex either for that matter. Just a lot of nudity and silly dialog. I couldn't help but find some appreciation for this little film, if only for the completely cornball logic the film goes by.

Gorgeous Annie Belle in her prime stars in this adventure/sex movie. She wears her hair in a buzz cut that is bleached platinum. She and her boyfriend are visiting some tropical Asian paradise. They have decided to keep an "open" sexual relationship, which is played out on their journey to find a secret society/tribe where the people live one year and then are reborn in some kind of ceremony. The scenery is gorgeous, deep vast green gorges and jungles are explored. The imagery is very similar to that of the movie "Black Emanuelle". It is rich and colorful. Recommended!