Velluto nero (1976)

Director:

Brunello Rondi

Writers:

Ferdinando Baldi (story)
Brunello Rondi (writer)

Release Date:

February 1978 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot Keywords:

Group Sex | Sex | Female Nudity | Lesbian | Photo Model

Cast

Laura Gemser	...	Laura
Annie Belle	...	Pina
Al Cliver	...	Horatio
Gabriele Tinti	...	Carlo
Feodor Chaliapin Jr.	...	Hal
Ziggy Zanger	...	Magda
Nieves Navarro	...	Crystal (as Susan Scott)
Tarik Ali	...	Ali

Also Known As:

Black Emmanuelle, White Emmanuelle
Black Velvet
Emanuelle in Egypt (USA) (censored version)
Naked Paradise
Smooth Velvet, Raw Silk (Europe: English title)

Runtime:

UK:79 min | USA:85 min

Country:

Italy

Language:

Italian

Color:

Color (Telecolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

UK:18 | USA:R

Company:

Rekord Films

Movie Connections:

Featured in Twisted Sex Vol. 15 (1996) (V)

Pretty sexy but almost completely plot less

This movie is virtually plot less even for a "Black Emanuelle" flick (which is saying A LOT). It revolves around a family of women living in Egypt for some reason. The mother (Nieves Navarro) spends her time getting it on with her native manservant and a handsome, much younger spiritual guru (Al "Zombie" Cliver). The older daughter gets off on teasing and tormenting the manservant when her mother's not busy with him. The younger daughter "Laure" (Annie Belle, who may or may not be playing the same character she played in the real-life Emmanuelle Arsan's own directorial knock-off her "Emmanuelle" character, which was called "Laure")also shows up, apparently returning from school or something. Finally, you have friends of the family played by real-life couple, Laura Gemser and Gabriele Tinti. Gemser is playing a character called "Emanuelle", but she doesn't seem like the same chirpy, world-renowned photojournalist "Emanuelle" she plays in all the other movies (who sometimes goes by "May"). Here she is a much more passive fashion model, whose crazed photographer boyfriend (Tinti) insists on photographing her naked next to rotting animal carcasses or a caravan of natives who have been recently slaughtered my highwaymen ("It's life and death"!), that is when he's not raping her in front of everybody. "Laure" gets involved with "Emanuelle" and her boyfriend and also with Cliver (who at the time was Belle's real-life lover). So are you confused yet?

Needless to say much softcore sex ensues--which is really the only reason watch this. Gemser looks very lovely, but she is not as good as she usually is (with the exception of a bizarre freak-out scene in a mosque). Annie Belle (who I guess is supposed to be the "white Emannuelle") was a French beauty with a great body and bad Annie Lennox haircut who couldn't act her way out of crisp paper sack, let alone any of the movies she was inexplicably cast in (like Joe D'Amato's "Absurd" or Ruggero Deodato's "House by the Edge of Park"). Ditto with the vaguely sexy but more obscure actress playing the older sister. The best performances by far though are Tinti as the crazed photographer and Nieves Navarro as the insatiable older woman.

The movie is more of a travelogue than usual as the characters all take off trekking around Egypt stopping only for sex or sex-related religious/psychedelic experiences. It is also even more pretentious, pseudo-philosophical, preposterous, and, well, European than usual as well. I'd recommend this maybe for the four sexy actresses involved, the stunning Egyptian scenery, and the general weirdness, but otherwise it barely even qualifies as a narrative film.