''Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade'' ( it, La via della prostituzione, lit=The path of prostitution) is an Italian

sexploitation A sexploitation film (or sex-exploitation film) is a class of independently produced, low-budget feature film that is generally associated with the 1960s and early 1970s, and that serves largely as a vehicle for the exhibition of non-explicit s ...

film from 1978 directed by

Joe D'Amato Aristide Massaccesi (15 December 1936 – 23 January 1999), known professionally as Joe D'Amato, was an Italian film director, producer, cinematographer, and screenwriter who worked in many genres (westerns, decamerotici, peplum, war films, ...

as his last ''

Black Emanuelle ''Black Emanuelle'' (Italian: ''Emanuelle nera'') is a softcore sexploitation film from 1975 directed by Bitto Albertini. This Africa set film was shot mostly in Kenya. The music was composed by Nico Fidenco. ''Black Emanuelle'' was followed ...

'' film. It was also known as ''Emanuelle and the Girls of Madame Claude''.

Plot

Emanuelle is in

Kenya ) , national_anthem = "Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu"() , image_map = , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Nairobi , coordinates = , largest_city = Nairobi , ...

to arrange an interview with the

Italian American Italian Americans ( it, italoamericani or ''italo-americani'', ) are Americans who have full or partial Italian ancestry. The largest concentrations of Italian Americans are in the urban Northeast and industrial Midwestern metropolitan areas, ...

gangster George Lagnetti ("Giorgio Rivetti" in the English dub). She succeeds in meeting him with help from her friend Susan Towers and Prince Aurozanni but is intrigued by other events, leading her to meet the

white slave White slavery (also white slave trade or white slave trafficking) refers to the slavery of Europeans, whether by non-Europeans (such as West Asians and North Africans), or by other Europeans (for example naval galley slaves or the Vikings' th ...

trader Francis Harley, and setting her up for a dangerous undercover operation at the

San Diego San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the List of United States cities by population, eigh ...

mansion of

Madame Claude Fernande Grudet (6 July 1923 – 15 December 2015), also known as Madame Claude, was a French brothel keeper. In the 1960s, she was the head of a French network of call girls who worked especially for dignitaries and civil servants. Biograp ...

, which functions as a

brothel A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...

for top-level dignitaries and

civil servants The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...

Cast

Laura Gemser Laurette Marcia Gemser (born 5 October 1950) is an Indonesian-Dutch retired actress, model and costume designer. She is primarily known for her work in Italian erotic cinema, most notably the ''Emanuelle'' series. Many of her films were collabo ...

as Emanuelle *

Ely Galleani Ely Galleani (born 24 April 1953), sometimes credited as Justine Gall and Ely Gall, is a retired Italian film actress. Born in Alassio as Federica Elisabetta De Galleani, daughter of an Italian count and of a Polish woman of Lithuanian origin, G ...

as Susan Towers * Gabriele Tinti as Francis Harley *

Venantino Venantini Venantino Venantini (17 April 1930 – 9 October 2018) was an Italian film actor.Laura Gemser Laurette Marcia Gemser (born 5 October 1950) is an Indonesian-Dutch retired actress, model and costume designer. She is primarily known for her work in Italian erotic cinema, most notably the ''Emanuelle'' series. Many of her films were collabo ...

). Like most films directed or produced by Joe D'Amato, it is an attempt to capitalise on the commercial success of another film - in this case the 1977 film ''

The French Woman ''The French Woman'' (french: Madame Claude) is a 1977 French drama film directed by Just Jaeckin and starring Françoise Fabian. The film is inspired by the life of French brothel madam Madame Claude. Cast * Françoise Fabian as Madame Claude ...

'' (french: Madame Claude). The film is one of the Black Emanuelle films with the heaviest censorship, eight minutes cut in a theatrical release.''Stracult: Dizionario dei film italiani'' (2004), Marco Giusti, Frassinelli, Roma,

Release

''Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade'' was released in Italy on April 20, 1978.

Reception

In a contemporary review, John Pym (''

Monthly Film Bulletin ''The Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 to April 1991, when it merged with ''Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those with a ...

'') "a flimsy, though surprisingly unsensational, yarn supposedly concerned with the horrors of 'white slavery'. The dismal artifice of the whole severely tests the viewer's patience."

References

External links

*
''Emanuelle and the White Slave Trade''
at

Variety Distribution Variety Distribution is an Italian-based film distribution company. It distributes Italian films worldwide, produced from the 1930s onward. History Variety Distribution (formerly Variety Film and Variety Communications) has been in the film ...

1978 films Films directed by Joe D'Amato Italian sexploitation films 1970s Italian-language films Italian crime films Films set in Kenya Films set in New York City Films set in San Diego Emanuelle Italian LGBT-related films Films scored by Nico Fidenco 1970s Italian films 1970s French films {{exploitation-film-stub