Oh Dear, What Can the Matter Be? (Carry On Emmannuelle (DVD))

Member Name: The Polar One

Product:	Carry On Emmannuelle (DVD)
Date:	17/06/09 (49 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Suzanne Danielle looks quite good

Disadvantages: Not funny, too sleazy

69. Carry on Emmannuelle (1978)
[film only review]

I won't pretend to be the biggest fan of the Carry On films, but due to the number of times most were repeated on television throughout the eighties, I must have seen the bulk of the series' 31 films. For me, their strengths came from the self aware and bawdy atmosphere, the word play of puns and mild double entendres, sending up conservative suburban Britain, and the sense of familiarity. The continual theme of sexual innuendo made them a little risqué in the sixties, but come the seventies something changed.

With a more permissive society came sex comedies like the Confessions series; the first being Confessions of a Window Cleaner in 1974. Boasting more breasts and cruder humour, they made the Carry Ons look tame. Not a problem when catering for a different audience, although the regular producers, writers and actors for the Carry Ons were changing too. Hardly surprising after so many years, but the result seemed to make the films look and sound cheaper. Perhaps trying to compete with their new rivals. Just looking at the four titles preceding Emmanuelle you have Carry On... Girls, Dick, Behind, and England. While England sounds the tamest, many consider it the worst of all for its lack of wit and increased reliance on nudity. I would say Emmannuelle is even worse and hardly feels like a traditional Carry On at all.

The basic premise is a parody of the erotic French film Emmanuelle. Kenneth Williams plays French Ambassador Emile Prevert, whose estranged wife Emmannuelle returns to him in England. He's impotent and unwilling to admit it, instead constantly working and working out. He speaks with an outrageous accent, which keeps dropping. Meanwhile Emmanuelle openly enjoys affairs with all and sundry. The first of which, a middle aged mummy's boy, falls in love and stalks her. Their household staff are played by some of the Carry On regulars.

It's awful. There's no other word. My first issue is the lack of restraint. The more sexual scenes (there are no actual sex scenes) aren't funny or sexy or necessary to get the point across. There's more flesh on show than in any other Carry On, a surprising amount of it Kenneth Williams, purely to make the same joke over and over that Emmannuelle's lifestyle is considered inappropriate in England. The only other joke being that it's funny how she sleeps around so much. The film becomes a string of off-screen nookie with little other situational humour, leaving it more like a really bad porno than a comedy.

It's especially not sexy with all the bumbling old men hanging about. Speaking of the men, there's a bizarre gag quite common in this series that I still don't get. A man will act excited by a woman, then as soon as she takes control and starts undressing him etc, it's too much and he tries to escape. Pulling all sorts of faces in the process. For an occasional stereotype this might work, but it happens so often with any character they please. Call me old fashioned but just **** her.

Whilst in other films the light on plot, sketch-like style is a benefit. Often thanks to the charm of the leads. Here the set-ups and punch lines are too clumsily written, and padded out to fill the running time. It ends up feeling meandering and dull. What remains of the regular cast (Joan Sims, Kenneth Connor, Peter Butterworth, Jack Douglas) don't get much opportunity to shine. Either in terms of material or screen time. There's no energy to it, as if were filmed after Sunday lunch and before nipping down the pub. Even Kenneth Williams puts in a lazy performance, with a terrible French accent. It's commonly noted that Barbara Windsor walked out during rehearsals, and I don't blame her.

Carry On Emmannuelle is very much the last gasp of a series with nothing new to offer, and being culturally left behind. With the focus mostly on Danielle and Williams, and the leftover regulars sidelined having tea in the servants quarters, it doesn't have the 'gangs all here' atmosphere of the earlier films. I got two sniggers from it in the whole 88 minutes. If you want some softcore titillation then you'd be spoilt for better choices even in 1978. If you want a funny film look anywhere but here.

Rated: UK:15 / USA:R
Running Time: 88 mins

Trivia: On 22nd January 2009 Carry On Emmanuelle charted at No.69 on the IMDB's bottom 100 films list. Scoring 2.2 out of 10, from 716 votes. (I've hit a patch of commercially unavailable films, so am weaving my way through some old stats still).

Summary: There's nothing as wretched as a failed comedy.