This is perhaps the most enjoyable of e Aristide Massaccesi's EMANUELLE movies, relatively free of the sadistic excesses of more extreme installments such as EMANUELLE IN America and EMANUELLE AND THE LAST CANNIBALS. As in the previous episode, EMANUELLE AND THE WHITE SLAVE TRADE (a/k/a VIA DELLA PROSTITUZIONE and at least half a dozen other titles), our intrepid girl reporter (still played by statuesque Laura Gemser who hails from the isle of Java in the former Dutch Indies) is hot on the trail of an international white slavery ring.
Having said thanks to the lorry driver (US adult superstar Paul Thomas) who picked her up naked in San Francisco harbor in her customary fashion, she bumps into old friend and colleague Cora Norman (German nudie starlet and later middle-aged Queen Mum of Spaghetti Hardcore Karin Schubert) who has found a lead to the gang's whereabouts in Rome. Before she can go check this out however, Emanuelle's editor demands that she'd do an exposé on some trendy Indian guru (exploitation mainstay George Eastman a/k/a Luigi Montefiori) in sunny Bombay instead. This makes for the best (and funniest) part of the movie as bored housewives from all over the world flock to the temple to experience the guru's heavily hyped "prolonged orgasm" techniques. Naturally, the guy turns out to be a fraud as Emanuelle soon learns when she makes love to him and he turns out to be a touch, well, premature !
In Rome, Cora gets beaten up and raped as her investigations start to turn up a bit too much in the way of damaging information as Emanuelle allows herself to be picked up by a pair of local lover boys who deliver her to the lair of the evildoers. Luckily, she had just met some virginal puppy dog (played by Claudio Alliotti who would go on to star in Masuo Ikeda's extraordinary DEDICATO AL MARE EGEO) mere minutes before and asked him to follow her on his Vespa and inform the cops.
Hong Kong and wicked Chinamen are next on the agenda, including some spectacularly tasteless (but hilarious) business involving strapped down naked women with various animal species, fortunately with appropriate comeuppance for their tormentor, before we're off again to downtown Teheran for sheiks and harems.
Capturing their target at this last stop, Emanuelle and Cora learn that women's rights are still trampled on their N.Y. home turf as well when they're invited along with an assortment of senators and their entourage for the humiliation of Miss Ohio (hardcore porn actress Juliet Graham) at the hands of homeless bums.
Even though most of the film's gorgeous female cast gets roughed up at some point, Massaccesi manages to keep the tone surprisingly light, helped by the furious pace with which he rushes through the often nonsensical proceedings, making this the cinematic equivalent of the sleazy adult comics that were quite popular at the time, in their own way unassuming precursors to much of today's manga output. Sex is quite strong for soft core with fleeting hardcore footage spicing up the orgy scenes, none of it involving Gemser though who acts as haughtily impervious to the tawdry shenanigans as ever, adding an arbitrary touch of class in the process. Italian exploitation veteran Ivan Rassimov is pretty much wasted as diplomat and do-gooder Malcolm Robertson who falls in love with our flighty heroine but never manages to get into her pants (on those rare occasions she's actually wearing them !) due to conflicting schedules which tend to find them at opposing sides of the world.
Good cinematography by Massaccesi supplies surface gloss (they were ripping off a "très chic" French sex series, after all) and Nico Fidenco's infernally groovy soundtrack bumps 'n' grinds along with the cast. So let me leave you with the lyrics to the unforgettable (resistance is futile) theme song, all together now : "Let's take a picture of love !"
