 Gemser adds a few degrees to the equatorial heat.  
Yup, Laura Gemser again. It's just one of those things. La donna della calda terra premiered in Italy two days after Emanuelle e gli ultimi cannibali, so you get to enjoy her twice this week. Above are two posters for the former film, which was originally made in Spanish and released as La mujer de la tierra caliente, then retitled in English as Emanuelle - A Woman from a Hot Country, and, more succinctly, Fury. By this point Gemser's Emanuelle series had pitted her against everything from slavers to cannibals, but here she headlines something close to a straight drama, as she meets Stuart Whitman while both are hitchhiking the hot backroads of Venezuela. As they sit together in a horse trailer being towed across the country, they tell each other their tragic histories.
We've made fun of the bizarre plots of Gemser's movies, but this attempt at unsensationalistic drama is conceptually flat and the screenplay is terrible. Our favorite line: “Don't pay too much attention to women. We have days in which we see everything distorted.” We'd retort that men have entire lifetimes in which they see everything distorted, which is why the world is fucked. *checking credits* Yeah, the screenplay was written by men. Well, they dropped the ball here, not just because of bad writing, but because—and we never thought we'd say this—Gemser's movies need rampant weirdness to be watchable. So give up being normal and enbrace the bizarre. Bring on the slavers and cannibals. They were sorely missed. After premiering in Spain in July 1978, La donna della calda terra opened in Italy today the same year.
                    
 Gemser gets freaky on the island of brotherly love. 
La spiaggia del desiderio is another Laura Gemser sexploitation epic, third in what would become a long series of Emanuelle movies, and the first to truly jump the shark. A bit of backstory: Author Emmanuelle Arsan wrote the original Emmanuelle character, based on herself, in 1967, and saw it become the erotic film Emmanuelle starring Sylvia Kristel. It premiered in France in June 1974 and was a worldwide smash by that autumn. But Italian production company Aquila Cinematografica had managed to film and rush release a knock-off entitled Amore libero that hit cinemas in Rome by August of 1974. The movie starred Gemser as a character named Emanuelle—with one 'm'. This film too was something of a success, in the sense that it made money while costing far less.
After the success of the French Emmanuelle its makers decided to cash in with a sequel. Trinacra Films and Orphée Productions kicked France to the curb and made Emmanuelle II with an eye toward the large U.S. market, where their sophomore entry eventually had its world premiere in December of 1975. While shooting this sequel they apparently figured the more Em(m)aunelles the better and cast Laura Gemser as a sexy masseuse in order to pair her up—naked—with Kristel. The spirit of cooperation is admirable, but certainly what this casting decision did was give Gemser's Emanuelle just as much legitimacy as Kristel's Emmanuelle.
At the time Gemser was enjoying this cameo appearance in Emmanuelle II she had already made or was about to make a sequel to her Amore libero. We use that uncertain terminology because the French Emmanuelle films were higher budget productions and took longer to film and post-produce, which means even though Gemser's sequel hit cinemas before Emmanuelle II, it's possible it was filmed after and rammed through post to get to audiences first. In any case, Gemser's sequel, already cynically thieving the original Emmanuelle concept, was titled to take advantage of the burgeoning blaxploitation wave. Emanuelle negra it was called—Black Emanuelle.
Gemser was off and running and would eventually make more than a dozen Emanuelle films, each more preposterous than the previous. Amore libero and Emanuelle negra featured Gemser playing an Emanuelle who, like the original character written by Emmauelle Arsan, enjoyed sexual adventures in exotic tourist destinations. But La spiaggia del desiderio is a lost world flick that features her living on an isolated island with her father and brother in primitive bliss. We suspect the entire script was written to avoid high budget location work and unnecessary characters.
In any case, it's just Gemser, her dad, and her bro on this uncharted spit of tropical sand off the coast of Venezuela, until a shipwreck victim washes up and brings with him a host of problems. Because, you see, Gemser plays a game with her brother, a very pleasurable game that she—in her innocence—doesn't realize is known as incest in the civilized world. When she begins to play the game with the newcomer that's when things go terribly wrong. Think of it as The Blue Lagoon years before that movie appeared, but with brotherly love thrown in to provide an excuse to philosophize about cultural norms.
The main plot question becomes this: does the newcomer try to get Gemser to realize what she's doing is wrong, or is it really society that's wrong to judge true love? And secondarily, should he take her away to civilization, or would the real world destroy all that is innocent and wonderful about her? This is deep shit, folks. In our view, Gemser should leave the island—a few civilized cheeseburgers might actually do her good. She's 5' 7” and goes—maybe—115 soaking wet, so she really does look like she's been living on coconuts and crabs for years. But for her fans it's about her whole package, even if that package looks underfed.
We can't recommend La spiaggia del desiderio. There's just nothing much going on here. We suspect the film was toned down because of the (completely unneeded and distasteful) incest angle, a problem her production company might not have foreseen until it was too late. Like: “Uh, huddle up people—we just learned we can't show Laura boning her brother without being slapped with an injunction.” Thus with Gemser's nude frolicking reduced to a bare minimum, there's not much to sustain interest. If we were you we'd give this particular Emanuelle a pass. La spiaggia del desiderio premiered in Italy today in 1976.  
 Day of reckoning looms for Slippery Silvio. 
In Italy it has to be one of the biggest trials in history. Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is facing charges that he paid for sex with a then-underaged prostitute on thirteen separate occasions, and afterward used his power to cover it up. Both Berlusconi and the woman—known as Ruby, but born Karima El Mahroug in Morocco—deny hooking up, but Italian prosecutors claim to possess a wealth of wiretap evidence that will help them prove otherwise. The trial began yesterday, but that initial session lasted only seven minutes before being adjourned. Proceedings will resume in May, and eventually 20,000 pages of evidence will be presented and forty women will be called as prosecution witnesses. Meanwhile the defense witness list includes assorted attendees of Berlusconi’s many parties, including American actor George Clooney, Venezuelan model Aida Yespica, Italian foreign minister Franco Frattini, Portuguese football god Cristiano Ronaldo, and a who’s-who of jetsetters, television stars, and showgirls. Berlusconi didn’t attend yesterday’s court session, and has maintained all along that the event is a politically-motivated set-up. Which prompts us to point out that Berlusconi has been surrounded by scandal since way before he became prime minister. Perhaps that’s why in 2008 he pushed through a law granting himself immunity from prosecution while in office. That law was finally overturned last year, paving the way for what Italians are calling the “bunga bunga” trial. Berlusconi claims that his famous parties are not bacchanals, as portrayed in the tabloid press, but rather “convivial, elegant soirées of food and song.” Of course, bacchanals are always convivial and elegant on the surface, and remain that way to 99% of the guests. But in a private room upstairs the host’s closest homies and associates are slurping MDMA-spiked Taittinger blanc out of giggling models’ navels. How do we know? Because one of us worked at Playboy before running away to the developing world—which is to say, we know whereof we speak. We don’t think there’s any doubt that political motivations play a part in Berlusconi’s prosecution, but frankly, we don’t blame his enemies—the man is an international embarrassment. Not because he sleeps with showgirls and models fifty years younger than him—we’d all do that if we could. What? Oh, don’t give us that shit. Of course you would. And to our female readers—yes, you would do the same with a twenty-two-year-old Calvin Klein Jeans model. Or even two of them. No, Berlusconi’s a joke because the same planetoid-sized ego that’s convinced him he’s getting all this trim because of his charm and looks has also convinced him he can portray his country as one where public office is a farce. Or put another way—part of a prime minister’s job is to bring credibility to a nation, and if he hates that fact, he should step down. True, he wouldn’t be able to funnel models and dancers into cabinet positions, but at least as a civilian his sex life would once again be private (and the public wouldn't have to hear about about the septuagenarian heaving atop some poor teenager like a walrus). In any case, whether Berlusconi returns to civilian life may no longer be his choice. Much of the public despise him, and are calling for his resignation. And even assuming he does secure an acquittal, he faces three more trials on a variety of corruption charges.
 Sea monster washes up on Venezuelan coast. 
Since it’s nearly Halloween—our favorite American holiday by far—we thought we’d show you this monster that was found in Venezuela. It’s supposed to be a siren. Allegedly, a local oil worker managed to snap these photos before government officials showed up and whisked the carcass away. Or so the story goes. Fact or fiction? We’ll defer to Orson Welles on this one.
 Trust me, I'm a banker. 
Yesterday in the U.S., the Securities and Exchange Commission accused investment banker and cricket mogul Allen Stanford of operating a multi-billion dollar banking swindle. Stanford is a native of Texas, but relocated years ago to the Caribbean, where he built a cricket empire on the island of Antigua that includes an international tournament and a cricket stadium. While the SEC was busy this morning officially filing charges in federal court, depositors made runs on Stanford-owned banks in Antigua, Panama and Venezuela. Also today, the Times UK reported that Stanford had lost money to swindler extraordinaire Bernie Madoff and lied to cover it up. The flamboyant Stanford, who last year was caught on television during a match pulling one cricket player’s wife into his lap and flirting with others, has not been seen in public.
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The headlines that mattered yesteryear.
1939—Holiday Records Strange Fruit
American blues and jazz singer Billie Holiday records "Strange Fruit", which is considered to be the first civil rights song. It began as a poem written by Abel Meeropol, which he later set to music and performed live with his wife Laura Duncan. The song became a Holiday standard immediately after she recorded it, and it remains one of the most highly regarded pieces of music in American history. 1927—Mae West Sentenced to Jail
American actress and playwright Mae West is sentenced to ten days in jail for obscenity for the content of her play Sex. The trial occurred even though the play had run for a year and had been seen by 325,000 people. However West's considerable popularity, already based on her risque image, only increased due to the controversy. 1971—Manson Sentenced to Death
In the U.S, cult leader Charles Manson is sentenced to death for inciting the murders of Sharon Tate and several other people. Three accomplices, who had actually done the killing, were also sentenced to death, but the state of California abolished capital punishment in 1972 and neither they nor Manson were ever actually executed. 1923—Yankee Stadium Opens
In New York City, Yankee Stadium, home of Major League Baseball's New York Yankees, opens with the Yankees beating their eternal rivals the Boston Red Sox 4 to 1. The stadium, which is nicknamed The House that Ruth Built, sees the Yankees become the most successful franchise in baseball history. It is eventually replaced by a new Yankee Stadium and closes in September 2008.
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