Emmanuelle: First Contact; Emmanuelle in Space; Emmanuelle, Queen of the Galaxy
Netherlands/USA. 1994.
Crew
Director – Lev L. Spiro, Screenplay – Daryl Haney & Noel Harrison, Producer – Alain Siritsky, Photography – Andrea Rosotto, Music – Don Preston, Production Design – Nava. Production Company – Oranton Ltd/Biouw Beleggingen B.V./ASP S.A .
Cast
Krista Allen (Emmanuelle), Paul Michael Richardson (Captain Haffron), Deena Cassiano & Jennifer Burton (Emmanuelle Morph), Jack Lawson (Phillip), Reginald Chevalier (Raymond), Kristen Knittle (Marie), Jane Stone (Gwen), Jennifer Behr (Ursula), Pegg Landon (Louise), Melissa Mead (Prostitute), Emile Lesevetti (Drunk)
Plot
Emmanuelle offers a ride to Haffon whose car has broken down. He appears odd and unfamiliar with regular things but explains that he is an alien come to study Earth. Haffron teleports Emmanuelle aboard his orbiting spaceship where the two of them have sex. Haffron is amazed at the experience, as are his monitoring people – their species reproduces by dividing meaning that sex is new to them. They return to Earth where Emmanuelle uses the alien shapechanging device to alter her form and have sex with her would-be boyfriend Philip who swore he was faithful to her. She and Haffron go on a cruise down the Nile. Haffron wants her to stay and so she issues a challenge – if he can spot which woman on board is her disguised with the shapechanging device, then she will stay.
The erotic film Emmanuelle (1974) was a huge hit. This was based on Emmanuelle (1967), a French novel about the bored wife of an engineer living in Bangkok and her sexual dalliances with various men and women she encounters. Though a work of fiction, it was published as a supposed memoir by Emmanuelle Arsan, which was later revealed to be a pseudonym for Marayat Rollet-Andriane, a French-Thai woman who was married to a French diplomat stationed in Thailand. The film version of Emmanuelle was a hit around the world, giving international fame to Sylvia Kristel in the title role, and was one of the first major softcore films to be released by an American studio. It led to a large number of spinoffs. There were six official Emmanuelle sequels, three of them starring Sylvia Kristel. There were also a good many unofficial films using the Emmanuelle name and other works of Euro erotica that were passed off as Emmanuelle films in English-dubbed release, even a British spoof Carry On Emmanuelle (1978). To date, there are over seventy films bearing the Emmanuelle name.
The original Emmanuelle book is grounded in realism. However, the films increasingly abandon this and there was even several genre crossovers, including Emmanuelle the Private Collection, a series of seven films made for cable starring Dutch actress Natasja Vermeer that included Emmanuelle the Private Collection: Emmanuelle vs Dracula (2004) and Emmanuelle the Private Collection: The Sex Lives of Ghosts (2004). There was an Italian-made copycat Emanuelle series starring Laura Gemser, which produced Emanuelle and the Last Cannibals (1977), a bizarre attempt to marry the Emmanuelle erotic film with the Italian cannibal film.
Emmanuelle in Space (1994) was a series of seven films produced for the cable market by Alain Siritzky (1942-2014). The French-American Siritzky has been a producer on the series since Emmanuelle 2 (1975) and holder of the Emmanuelle copyright since the third film Goodbye Emmanuelle (1977). By the point of Emmanuelle in Space: First Contact, there is zero resemblance to the original film or novel beyond the fact that both feature a woman named Emmanuelle who has a series of sexual encounters. It seems a long way from the original Emmanuelle Arsan, the French-Thai wife of a bored businessman in the 1950s, to Krista Allen’s Emmanuelle here, a regular statuesque single American girl of no seeming fixed occupation or income.
Sex aboard an alien ship
The original Emmanuelle and sequels were quite classy productions, made for theatrical release. On the other hand, these Emmanuelle in Space films are cheaply shot on video. They consist of standard videography of the era where the actresses in question are just humping away rhythmically. In a number of scenes – in particular, the one where Paul Michael Richardson goes with prostitute Melissa Mead – the actress does not even seem to be making an effort to seem believably in the throes of passion.
The film borrows the standard plot in SF/erotica hybrids of the aliens who have never experienced sex being introduced by humans – see also Outer Touch (1979). This meanders along and at least gets reasonable mileage out of a device that allows people to change their appearance and form. Beyond that, there is no real plot to the film. It is just serial sexual encounters with the most minimal plot stitching them together – the need for Krista Allen to go on a cruise down the Nile, visit a friend in Paris. There is not even any real ending to the plot.
The other Emmanuelle in Space films consist of Emmanuelle 2: A World of Desire (1994), Emmanuelle 3: A Lesson in Love (1994), Emmanuelle 4: Concealed Fantasy (1994), Emmanuelle 5: A Time to Dream (1994), Emmanuelle 6: One Final Fling (1994) and Emmanuelle 7: The Meaning of Love (1994), all featuring Krista Allen.
