Page 157 - Alternative Europe Eurotrash and Exploitation Cinema Since 1945

of $1.7 billion set in 1946.25 Earning some $1.9 billion with over a million viewers paying an average
of $1.88 a ticket,26 movie distributors and exhibitors began to see the impact of a generation weaned
on daily television spectatorship. Of necessity, this class was marketed with subjects of obvious appeal
like overt sexuality and graphic violence.
Given the 156 titles and 32 reissues distributed in 1974 by the major American studios United
Artists/MGM, Columbia, Twentieth Century Fox, Paramount, Warner Bros., Avco Embassy,
Universal and Allied Artists, the overall number declined from previous years.27 Still, the Motion
Picture Association of America rated 522 movies indicating a massive influx of independent and
foreign titles.28 Among this wider canvas were X-rated, 'adult only'-oriented movies and a greatet
number of G-rated titles appealing to the widest possible audience.
At the time of Begelman's decision to pick-up Emmanuelle, Columbia was reeling over the big
budget failure of its G-rated telease Lost Horizon (Charles Jarrott, 1973). This meant the major
studios, but especially Begelman at Columbia, wete eager to recapture the financial security of the
mid-1940s so an X-rated foreign title was undertaken to right a sinking ship.
Directly competing with the American-born 'raincoater' ideal advanced by the likes of Deep
Throat (Gerard Damiano, 1972), Emmanuelle was a viable alternative for on-screen sensuality. As
Arthur Winsten commented: 'What's not included is the hardcore views that have repelled some
delicate segments of the American porno audience. Thus this picture can be legitimately classed
as aphrodisiac in effect, not embarrassing for mixed company, and an inspiration to those who
might, for whatever reason, be inhibited.' 2 ' Significantly, these characteristic softcote traits made the
title, and others following in its wake with a preference for story development, however slight, and
character development, however two-dimensional, more easily adaptable to the introduction of home
video technology and cable television.
Where few dispute the popularity of hardcore sexual imagery in selective audiences and isolated
conditions, the more spectator-friendly Emmanuelle was all but invited home for late night movie
television channels and videocassette time shifting. This general welcome also meant Arsan's heroine
was adaptable to still other media, in variously many national contexts.
Surveying the viral growth stemming from Jaeckin's film, Mick Brown wrote on the phenomenon
in the relatively conservative Sunday Times Magazine as early as 1980:

Even without [Sylvia Kristel], Emmanuelle has continued to thrive. In the flood of films that
have been released to capitalise on the name, she has popped up in Denmark, America and
Japan, met wife-swappers, white-slave traders and cannibals, had a daughter and become a
nun. There have been Black, Yellow, even Pink Emanuelles [sic]. Any resemblance between
the original Emmanuelle and her successors is usually purely accidental - the single'm' or 'I'
in the Emanuelle of most titles avoids any breach of copyrighr. The majority of films are made
in France, Germany and Italy, often under a title which has nothing to do with anybody called
Emmanuelle whatsoever.30

Continuing his point, Brown specifies the motive for so many filmmakers to involve themselves with
Arsan's heroine: 'Commercial success is almost guaranteed; no matter what race, creed or colour

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