The Moseby Confidential Files: Laura Gemser in the Seventies (Amore libero-Free Love)

Born Laurette Marcia Gemser in Java, Indonesia a few weeks before Halloween in 1950, Laura Gemser came of age in the Dutch city of Utrecht after her parents relocated to the Netherlands just before her fifth birthday. A bright student with an interest in the arts and fashion, Gemser found herself enrolled at Artibus Art School in Utrecht in her late teens. While enrolled at Artibus, Gemser's striking good-looks led to a blossoming modelling career and soon she was being featured in various Belgium fashion and men's magazines.

It was her sudden success as a model that made Laura Gemser relocate from The Netherlands to Italy in her early twenties and film offers soon began to trickle in. Gemser's first film, Amore libero-Free Love, would be shot in 1973, and released in 1974, just before Laura's 24th birthday.



Directed by Pier Ludovico Pavoni, Amore libero-Free Love is a picturesque, if vacant, production that survives solely on its glorious locations and Gemer's incredible charisma. Better known for his terrific work as a cinematographer on works such as Mill of the Stone Women (1960), Pavoni's directorial credits include just three films, with Amore libero-Free Love being the second. The story, what there is of one, centers on a lonely engineer named Francesco (Enzo Bottesini) who, while searching for a missing miner on a beautiful tropical island, begins an affair with a lovely young woman named Janine (Gemser).







Amore libero-Free Love is a fairly pedestrian film and Pavoni doesn't show a lot of flair as a director, although to his credit he was smart enough to realize the main selling points of his film were the island and Gemser. Clocking in at under 90 minutes, Amore libero-Free Love never completely outstays its welcome and as a eye-popping travelogue it's quite a functional film and Gemser shines in her first role, even though ultimately Pavoni doesn't ask a lot of her other than just being gorgeous.








Amore libero-Free Love wasn't the easiest film to track down, when I first saw it, and my copy comes from an old television broadcast. It was released as The Real Emanuelle, to capitalize on Gemser's legendary films as Black Emanuelle, by MyA DVD a few years but apparently they utilized a print as poor as my copy. While it is understandable why MyA retitled the film, Amore libero-Free Love is actually a much more innocent and tamer work than those later Joe D'Amato films, although it can be seen as a bit of an early run-through in certain aspects.

***Harry Moseby Confidential was a mostly visual-based blog dedicated to the seventies that I have maintained, on and off, for the past several years. I have recently shut the site down and will be transferring the best of the Moseby posts to Moon in the Gutter and my Tumblr site, Gutter on the Moon, with added text when needed.***

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The Moseby Confidential Files (Laura Gemser in the Seventies) Eva nera (1976)

A quick glance at the cast and crew of the 1976 Italian production Eva nera would probably send even the most jaded cult film lover into a bit of a frenzy. The cast, which features the inspired pairing of Jack Palance and Laura Gemser, would probably be enough to do the trick, but when you factor in the fact that it was directed by Joe D'Amato, edited by Bruno Mattei and features a score from Piero Umiliani then Eva nera would fall into the category of must see for most exploitation film lovers. If the final film isn't the crazed powerhouse of cinematic mayhem one might hope for it is a very entertaining, if surprisingly subdued film, from the unstoppable team of D'Amato and Gemser and is deserving of better treatment than it has gotten on Region 1 Disc so far (as it is only available on a disappointing full-frame DVD under the title Black Cobra Woman).

Written and photographed by D'Amato, Eva nera focuses on an eccentric and rather bored wealthy man named Judas, living in Homg Kong, who dabbles in womanizing and snake collecting. Judas thinks he finds shangra la when he meets an impossibly beautiful young dancer named Eva, who happens to have an act featuring the slithering creatures he is so obsessed by.










Eva nera was the final of three whopping features D'Amato released in 1976, following Vow of Chasity and the stunning Emanuelle in Bangkok, an powerful entry in the Black Emanuelle saga starring the Eva nera players Gemser and Gabriele Tinti. While it isn't the dizzying cinematic experience that Emanuelle in Bangkok, or especially the follow-up Emanuelle in America, is Eva nera has its pleasures even though it finally feels a little too laid-back for its own good. D'Amato would have never been what one would refer to as a subtle filmmaker, but Eva nera feels positively tame when compared with the other films the great man was making in this period.









The chief pleasures of Eva nera are easy to spot. D'Amato's picturesque photography is typically striking and his camera gazes at Gemser, who was in her absolute prime in 1976, like a lover attempting to come to terms with what has become an obsession. The dance sequences are both erotic and playful and Umiliani's score keeps the material incredibly engaging, even during the moments where D'Amato's direction feels a bit lethargic (one imagines a certain creative and physical exhaustion might have been setting it.








Perhaps the biggest strike against Eva nera is the surprisingly muted performance delivered by Palance, who looks a little too bored at various points throughout the film. Watching Eva nera today, one wishes Palance would have perhaps had a little more fun with the material but more often than not he is overshadowed by both Genser and Tinti.








Eva nera is ultimately not among the essential D'Amato-Gemser collaborations but its charms finally outweighs its flaws and I would love to see a better quality-copy hit a Region 1 release on par with Severin's remarkable Black Emanuelle collections.