CARRY ON EMMANNUELLE

Aspect ratio: 1.85:1

Sound format: Mono

"Carry On" regular Sid James had been dead for almost two years when this threadbare concoction hit UK cinemas in 1978, and principal scriptwriter Talbot Rothwell had retired from the business in 1975 following a bout of ill health, throwing the long-standing (and extremely lucrative) "Carry On" series into disarray. While CARRY ON EMMANNUELLE isn't the worst of them - that 'honor' belongs to CARRY ON ENGLAND (1976), an utterly turgid wartime entry - Lance Peters' script was initially rejected by star Kenneth Williams as unworkable, though the finished product could hardly be worse! A mild, half-baked spin on the "Emmanuelle" series (inspired by Just Jaeckin's 1974 softcore drama), the 29th "Carry On" epic features Williams as the French ambassador to London, whose sexpot wife (Suzanne Danielle, surprisingly assured in her screen debut) has it off with all and sundry whilst pining for her husband's absent libido (lost when he landed on a church spire during a parachute jump - which demonstrates the film's level of wit). Series stalwarts Joan Sims, Jack Douglas, Kenneth Connor and Peter Butterworth look suitably embarrassed as members of the ambassador's household staff, and Larry Dann plays a downtrodden nerd who falls in love with Danielle following an amorous encounter on Concorde; Beryl Reid is his mum, a vision in chintz.

Opening with a dreadful disco ditty ('Love Crazy', written by Kenny Lynch and sung by 'Masterplan') which must have seemed dated even in 1978, CARRY ON EMMANNUELLE swaps the double entendres and deconstructive satire of Rothwell's era for a barrage of blatantly obvious sex jokes, none of which are even remotely funny, while Williams is reduced to mugging frantically over Danielle's 'suggestive' dialogue and dropping his drawers every time there's a lull in the action. While exploitation fans in other countries had been enjoying frank cinematic depictions of sex and sexuality since the late 1960's, British voyeurs - ie. those whose tastes ran more to NAUGHTY KNICKERS (1970) and DEEP THROAT (1972) than the mature exploration of adult themes favored by Ken Russell (THE DEVILS), Stanley Kubrick (A CLOCKWORK ORANGE) and others at the cutting edge of mainstream outrage - were forced to endure heavily censored imports and tawdry homegrown comedies (I'M NOT FEELING MYSELF TONIGHT, CAN YOU KEEP IT UP FOR A WEEK?, LET'S GET LAID, etc.) which reinforced sexual stereotypes of every persuasion, and CARRY ON EMMANNUELLE is no better or worse than any of them. Having bombed at the box-office, this SHOULD have been the series' last gasp, but director Gerald Thomas and producer Peter Rogers revived the format in 1992 for the equally lackluster CARRY ON COLUMBUS, while "Carry On London" (shudder!) currently exists in pre-production limbo. All together now:

"That woman is lo-o-ve crazy / She's lovin' all night! / That woman is lo-o-ve crazy / Won't stop for a bite!..."

Told you it was dreadful, didn't I?...

I have to say Carry on behind ranks as the last great Carry on film, after that they really do go downhill, but this one, I can't even think of many words to describe it, it's so bad it's almost unwatchable.

Thomas and Rogers must have been disappointed with the final outcome, they were so used to brilliance, and so were the cast, what they made was a cheap, desperate attempt to suit a change in society.

I'm scarred by the look on Joan Sims's face as she tries to deliver her lines. When I read Beryl Reid was in it I was really excited to see it, a fabulous comedy actress, what a shame this was her first, and last.

The worst film of all time? it's truly embarrassing, and it's just crude, but not even funny crude. I can't believe I got to the end. Hated it. 1/10

The permissive society of the seventies led to a growing number of erotic films in both Britain and France. The two countries, however, often had very different approaches to erotica. The characteristic British erotic film of the period was the 'sex comedy', typified by the later 'Carry On' films as well as the 'Confessions' series, 'Percy' and cinematic versions of stage farces such as 'Don't Just Lie There, Say Something' and 'No Sex Please, We're British'. These films all started from the premise that sex is something intrinsically comic, and attempted to get laughs from innuendo, doubles ententes and smutty, sniggering humour about breasts, bottoms, penises and bodily functions.

The typical French erotic film of the period- characterised by the 'Emmanuelle' series- took quite the opposite approach. The 'Emmanuelle' films approach their subject with an almost reverential seriousness, and are filled not only with sex scenes but also with much tedious sermonising about the Meaning of Life (which generally means having as much sex as possible). Whereas the British made sex seem ridiculous, the French came close to making it seem boring.

'Carry On Emmannuelle' would therefore seem to represent an intriguing fusion of two quite different approaches to the erotic film. The 'Carry On' films were by no means uniformly bad. They were generally at their best in the fifties and sixties when they concentrated on exploiting a vein of humour which was later to be mined to great effect by Mel Brooks- the deliberate parody of an established film or television genre. Thus 'Carry On Cowboy' parodied the western, 'Carry On Cleo' the sword-and-sandal epic (especially 'Cleopatra' itself) and 'Carry On Constable' British TV cop shows such as 'Dixon of Dock Green'.

The 'Emmanuelle' films might be thought to offer plenty of targets to the parodist or satirist, with their misty, soft-focus photography, their stilted dialogue and their pretentious philosophising. 'Carry On Emmannuelle' does not, however, attempt to guy the affectations of its original models, but is made as a fairly standard piece of British sex comedy- the main difference between this and earlier 'Carry Ons' is that smutty innuendo has largely been replaced by direct sexual references. The only links to the original films are the name of the heroine (deliberately misspelled- apparently for copyright reasons), the fact that she is married to an older man who works for the French diplomatic service (in London rather than in Bangkok) and the fact that she is continually unfaithful to him. The actress who plays Emmannuelle, Suzanne Danielle, another long-legged, curly-haired brunette, has a passing resemblance to Sylvia Kristel, although she is more voluptuous and lacks the Dutch girl's delicate features. Emmannuelle's husband M. Prevert (a fairly common French surname meaning 'green meadow', but probably chosen in this instance because of its closeness to the English word 'pervert') is impotent, so she enjoys herself with any other man she can find, including a gallery of VIPs, an entire football team, various embassy servants and an Australian body-builder. (Unlike her namesake one-n Emmanuelle, who takes as many female lovers as male ones, two-n Emmannuelle seems to be exclusively heterosexual).

The film does not, however, generate any humour from Emmannuelle's frantic sexual couplings. It simply assumes that the fact that she seduces so many men is a hugely amusing joke in itself. The film's theme tune 'Love Crazy' (apart from being intensely irritating) is not appropriately named. Emmannuelle may be sex-crazy, but that is not the same thing. Love is not an emotion featured anywhere in this film. The script's attempts at wit are feeble in the extreme- a running joke about the butler Lyons, whose name Emmannuelle consistently mispronounces as 'Loins', is as about as good as it gets. There is the typical 'Carry On' assumption that any sexual or lavatorial reference is automatically good for a laugh. All genuine humour seems to have been surgically removed.

This is a good example of one of the most miserable types of film, the failed comedy. A wretched serious drama can at least provide inadvertent humour of the 'so-bad-it's-funny' kind. A wretched comedy cannot. 'Carry On Emmannuelle' is so bad it's unfunny. When she walked out on this film, Barbara Windsor showed a greater discernment than I thought she possessed. The producers of the 'Carry On' films seem to have agreed that it was a failure, because it persuaded them to wind up the series and we were spared more offerings of this nature in the eighties. The failure of the attempted revival 'Carry On Columbus' (another rat-wretched 'comedy') in the early nineties shows what a wise decision that was. 2/10.