Emmanuelle in Soho | |
Director: | David Hughes |
Producer: | John M. East |
Writers: | --> |
Screenplay: |
|
Narrators: | --> |
Music: | Barry Kirsch |
Cinematography: | Don Lord |
Editing: | David Woodward |
Production Companies: | Roldvale |
Distributor: | Tigon[1] |
Runtime: | 67 minutes |
Country: | United Kingdom |
Emmanuelle in Soho is a 1981 British sex film directed by David Hughes and produced by David Sullivan, and starring Angie Quick (under the name 'Mandy Miller'), Julie Lee and John M. East.[2] Sullivan had originally intended Mary Millington to star in the film.[3]
The film tells the story of half-Chinese Kate Benson (played by Lee) and her photographer husband Paul (Kevin Fraser) who share their Bayswater home with a nymphomaniac stripper, Emmanuelle (played by Quick). The two women attempt to find work in the sex industry in London's Soho district, and get mixed up with a sleazy, and unscrupulous theatrical agent, Bill Anderson (played by East).
The film premiered in Sheffield and transferred to London where it ran for 10 weeks at the Eros cinema on Piccadilly Circus followed by 25 weeks at the Moulin in Great Windmill Street. There is also a hardcore versions of this film - such a version was released in Hong Kong cinemas where it ran for nearly three years.[4] The US release included a 6-minute mini-documentary prologue about the sex industry in Soho.[5]
Emmanuelle in Soho was one of the last British softcore films to receive a theatrical release before the abolition of the Eady Levy and the growth of home video led to the virtual disappearance of British low-budget exploitation film-making.[3] In a contemporary review, the Monthly Film Bulletin described the film as "of marginal interest for its unabashed portrait of the neighbourhood's tawdry illicit wares". The review noted that the "slipshod scripting is about par for the course".