Emanuelle & Francoise seem to be D'Amato's first attempt at cashing in on Just Jaeckin's original Emmanuelle, though the two films doesn't have much in common. Instead it has a curious resemblance to a TV-movie by Judd Taylor entitled Revenge (1971) in which Shelley Winters has in her cellar a huge cage made especially for the man who raped her daughter. Either way, the film is a fair shot at showing the director's capabilities when given a decent script (in this case written by Bruno Mattei, himself and an uncredited George Eastman) to tie onto his own special vision. For the unitiated the film is about Francoise (Gori) who commits suicide by jumping in front of a train after being seduced and ultimately humiliated by ruthless playboy Carlo (Eastman, minus the obligatory beard). Her older sister Emanuelle (Lindt), eager to revenge her sister's death, seduces big Carlo, then drugs him and locks him up in a little hidden chamber with mirror glasses in order to tease and torture him by having large dinner parties and sex orgies in front of him. Willing to go anywhere to make her point, Emanuelle even invites Carlo's current girlfriend for some heavy lesbian encounters. As the tag-line goes, Carlo is "tortured by his lust for two women"!

The film begins with a crosscutting between flashback scenes, involving Emanuelle's adventures leading to her death, and those in which Francoise identifies her sister's body at the morgue and subsequently planning the revenge plot. This way establishing that the act of revenge is not emotionally rash but something that has grown during a very long period of time, towards a carefully planned revenge plot, studied and dragged out for maximum satisfaction. From that point on the film gets darker and darker with D'Amato painting all characters in dark colors. Emanuelle herself is cold and calculating (perhaps underlined by being played by an uncharismatic actress), with only one thought on her mind. The other people involved in the plot are not much better. In any case, after being tortured for days, Carlo finally manages an attempt at escape. He succeeds in brutally killing his tormentress but destiny doesn't want him escaping his faith. When the cops arrives Carlo hides in his little chamber and is accidentally locked in by the unknowing cops and left for dead. Justice has succeeded. Doesn't it feel great? Emanuelle & Francoise is well worth checking out after all these years, there's something for everybody to treasure. On one hand it supports all of us who has always maintained that D'Amato once was a good and intelligent craftsman, on the other hand it has plenty gratuitous nudity for everyone who doesn't agree.

© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.