For the fifth Emmanuelle film, eccentric filmmaker Walerian Borowczyk took the helm, and American actress Monique Gabrielle, of "Bachelor Party" fame, played the sexually liberated woman of the movie's title. As is often the case with exploitation flicks, multiple versions of the movie exist. I was unfortunate enough to watch the French home video version, which features disgusting hardcore inserts of actual penetration that are thrown into the movie at random, and completely undercut whatever narrative the movie attempts. It also contributes to the movie's overall feeling of being an unwatchable mess.
Anyway in this one the typically free-spirited and sexually "free" Emmanuelle plays a soft-core filmmaker who also runs a dance studio.
Emmanuelle's masses of fans strip her naked at a premiere and she tumbles into some nerdy guy's boat. She is so famous he recognizes her immediately, and tells her why he doesn't approve of the garbage she directs. Of course they have sex anyway.
Borowczyk is not untalented as a softporn filmmaker. His sex scenes are pretty tasteful.
Apparently the nerdy guy is some kind of billionaire, but our Manny is also fighting off the advances of an oil sheik from some made up Arab country - Bengladistan or some such. Before we get to see how that turns out, we have to sit through a hardcore excerpt, this time with a black man with a big moustache. How does anyone get turned on watching this crap?
Manny throws a little hissy fit when she thinks her billionaire nerd is trying to "own her", like every other guy, so she goes to Bengladistan. I'm sure the sheik will have more modern ideas about feminism. Totally smart decision there, Manny!
Bengladistan requires women to cover up like Saudi Arabia or Iran. Just another reason why this trip was kind of a dumb move on the part of our free spirited lass.
In Bengladistan Manny meets some American guy who looks like Paul Reiser and warns her about the sheik owning women. They have sex.
Indeed, Manny meets a young woman who has apparently been kidnapped by the sheik. Either Manny or the young woman then masturbates with a rolled up serviette in a scene that comes out of nowhere, but isn't graphic enough to be a hardcore insert, so Borowczyk apparently intended its inclusion in the movie, confusing as it is.
Of course Manny ends up in the harem, where we get scenes reminiscent of the director's earlier "Behind Convent Walls", ie. nude gallivanting and lesbianism from women wearing pseudo-religious garb. The sheik introduces Manny to some of his 50 wives, including a young virgin whom he never plans on consummating, a crazy woman and a blind person. One of them is a beautiful dark skinned woman who is "smoking a herb that will make her child strong and handsome".
Manny has barely finished the tour when she gets rescued by Eddie, who takes her down a river. They're not so busy trying to evade the sheik's machine gun wielding henchmen that they don't pause to have sex.
Then Manny apparently ends up back in the arms of the billionaire. What happened to the guy who saved her? Who knows? Who cares?
Gabrielle was a beautiful woman, but she's not even looking that good here. The movie should have been about the beautiful herb smoking one, how she came to be in the harem, and her life there. That could have been interesting. What we end up with is pretty tiring to sit through.
