EMANUELLE AND FRANÇOISE (1976) Blu-ray
Director: Joe D'Amato
Severin Films

A year before Joe D'Amato launched his "Black Emanuelle" series, he took the globe-trotting reporter into darker areas with EMANUELLE AND FRANÇOISE, on Blu-ray from Severin Films.

Young model Françoise (Patrizia Gori, NATHALIE: ESCAPE FROM HELL) has her heart broken when she catches actor lover Carlo (George Eastman, ANTHROPHAGOUS) in bed with Mira (Karole Annie Edel, ALMOST HUMAN) and he cruelly throws her out of their apartment. She desperately tries to contact her reporter sister Emanuelle but she is away on a story. Left alone, Françoise sinks even deeper into depression and throws herself in front of a train. When Emanuelle comes to identify the body, the police give her a letter describing the reasons for her suicide and also reveal to her that they have been unable to find Carlo who was not known by any of her sister's professional acquaintances. Reading about how Carlo pimped her out to get a lead role in a film, raped her for the entertainment of his poker buddies, and even guilted her into appearing in a stag film to help him pay off his gambling debts, Emanuelle develops a thirst for revenge. Emanuelle finds Carlo almost accidentally and her beauty, as well as her wealth, is enough to draw him away from Mira and into her trap. Drugging him, she chains Carlo up in a secret closet with a two-way mirror while she torments him with impromptu striptease and a string of pickups including a lesbian threesome with Mira and her friend Pamela (Maria Rosaria Riuzzi, THE TOUGH ONES), culminating in an orgy that has a drug-addled Carlo fearing a fate worse than death.

Although the film features a character called Emanuelle and she is a reporter, the film has little in common with Bitto Albertini's BLACK EMANUELLE or the series director Joe D'Amato would launch a year later with Laura Gemser. EMANUELLE AND FRANÇOISE – also known as EMANUELLE'S REVENGE and BLOOD VENGEANCE – is a virtual remake of a Greek film released in Italy as THE HOT REVENGE OF SEX and in the United States as THE WILD PUSSYCAT (recently released on Blu-ray by Mondo Macabro). Whether the Greek film was wildly successful in Italy or it was just familiar to co-screenwriter/editor Bruno Mattei (HELL OF THE LIVING DEAD), the film improves on the source in some ways but not so much in others. The original film had the dead sister's diary divulging her abuse at her lover's hands but here we get a seemingly endless letter that provokes flashbacks at random while she seems to not so much track Carlo down as run into him with little for the audience to determine how she deduces that he is the one. The ending substitutes one sting in the tale for another that is effective if not quite as fitting. The faux stag film in black and white with added scratches and the "cannibal feast" sequences anticipate the snuff film seen in D'Amato's later EMANUELLE IN AMERICA. Although the film does not make explicit the sibling relationship between Emanuelle and Françoise until late in the film, the Italian title card subtitle "Le Sorelline" should give things away from the start. Stuntman/actor Massimo Vanni (THE FACE WITH TWO LEFT FEET) has a small role as a poolside gigolo. The score attributed to Joe Dynamo aka Gianni Marchetti (THE TRUE STORY OF THE NUN OF MONZA) features a handful of songs by The Pennies including the folksy opening credits song "My Lyne."

Not officially released in the United States, the film appeared in English on video in the UK as BLOOD VEANGEANCE and Australia as EMANUELLE'S REVENGE. The only English-friendly version until now on DVD was X-Rated's 2005 hardbox edition which featured a non-anamorphic 1.66:1 transfer of the Italian cut of the film rather than the German theatrical version released by Erwin C. Dietrich's Ascot-Elite with semi-hardcore inserts featuring Brigitte Lahaie (FASCINATION). The HD master here reached Blu-ray before Severin in Germany via X-Rated with only Italian and German audio options and in France from Le Chat Qui Fume with French and Italian audio. Severin's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen Blu-ray does not look inordinately cropped so the 1.66:1 non-anamorphic master may have been enlarged for readability. Thanks to D'Amato's stylish but economical lighting and professional camerawork, the image looks consistently sharp and colorful, and there is no noticeable damage to the element. English and Italian audio options are included in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono, and the pitch appears slower in the former; however, that may be because I originally saw the film in a PAL video transfer (the music used for the menu screen has the same pitch as the Italian track but it too may have been cribbed from that track or the cleaned up cue on the X-Rated disc extras). Optional English SDH subtitles are available for the English track and English for the Italian track, with only little variances between the two tracks going by the translation.

Severin's Blu-ray shares with the French Blu-ray two new video interviews (the French disc also includes the D'Amato documentary TOTALLY UNCUT which will be featured stateside as an extra on Mondo Macabro's Blu-ray of EMANUELLE IN AMERICA). In "Three Women and a Mirror" (14:31), Riuzzi recalls being a minor when she landed some of her first risqué roles along with a bit part in Dino Risi's SCENT OF A WOMAN. Of the film, she discusses doing the lesbian threesome scene and the dinner orgy, Lindt's professionalism, Eastman's coldness, and rooming with Gori. In "The Other Side of the Mirror" (15:21), Eastman says he has no love for the film and only did it because it was being shot in a villa near his home that belonged to producer Franco Gaudenzi (AFTER DEATH). He is aware that Mattei's screenplay was inspired by THE WILD PUSSYCAT and also suggests that it was the source for the Fulci-scripted COLLECTOR'S ITEM and the Fulci-directed THE DEVIL'S HONEY, as well as claiming to have done some rewrites on it (which is not hard to believe since he was already writing films and had a good collaborative relationship with D'Amato, and one wonders whether the macho actor changed the ending). Unlike some other Eastman interviews, he has mostly good things to say about his collaborators, only noting that Mattei's suggestions to D'Amato on the set were often ignored and that D'Amato should have gone onto better films but preferred to do ten B movies in a year than one A picture. The clips from both interviews feature shots from the French titles sequence which is presumably on the French Blu-ray (the presentation here has Italian credits).

The deleted/alternate scenes (14:13) segment features a snippet of footage from the English version not included in the Italian but most of the extras come from a poor quality source for the German version. The incomplete German credits credit the photography to Dietrich regular Peter Baumgartner and MAD FOXES director Paul Grau while the music was definitely replaced by jazzy accompaniment from Walter Baumgartner (presumably as much stamping their identity on the film as to make it easier to recut the sex scenes given how Mattei's original editing syncs to the music). Each nude scene or sex scene is augmented by inserts, the shot of the mechanic seeing up Emanuelle's skirt is replaced with a panty-less double, the sex scenes with Emanuelle and the ones with Françoise have both close-up inserts and some wide shot doubles with averted faces or silhouetted bodies, and the final orgy throws in some slightly more explicit shots into an already delirious sequence. The German theatrical trailer (3:28) is also included. The reversible cover features a reproduction of the UK BLOOD VENGEANCE artwork. Also available directly from Severin with a limited edition slipcover and in the Sleaze is Risen bundle with Escape from Women's Prison. (Eric Cotenas)

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