Trivia / Emmanuelle

• Adaptation Displacement: The movies are far more well-known to general audiences than the original novel.
• Banned in China: The film was originally denied permits to film in Thailand, in part due to its sexual content. The filmmakers only managed to do so by presenting an earlier, family-oriented version of the script they had no intention of shooting, and later pretending that they were merely shooting a documentary film of the local sites. In an interview, Sylvia Kristel said they filmed most of the sex scenes in secure locations. However, they did get caught once. She and another woman were being filmed nude under a waterfall and the police turned up. They were thrown in jail for a night while the producers sorted everything out. But then they had an offer to help from a surprising source. It turned out the prince of Thailand was a huge fan of films and had his own studio built near the palace, so he let them use that for the rest of the shoot.
• …But I Play One on TV: Sylvia Kristel said in a 2011 interview that the films were never good for her own sex life. She quipped, "Maybe men were scared that I had a 12-hour programme of sex games planned and I would be rating their performance along the way."
• Channel Hop: The films released theatrically went from Columbia Pictures to Paramount to Miramax to The Cannon Group. Four films, four distributors.
• Creator Backlash: In a 2007 interview, Sylvia Kristel said the scene where Emmanuelle is offered up as the prize to two competitors in a Thai boxing match was particularly distasteful. She said she still shudders to think of it. When the scene was first presented to her as a crucial part of her character's 'education', she said she attempted to argue with the director Just Jaeckin that no woman would find being raped enjoyable. "But it was very hard to explain that to a male director," she said. "He merely replied 'Yes, but it's in the book.' It was a very humiliating scene, and very difficult for me."
• The Danza: Kristel's character in 4 is also named Sylvia, after her actual first name.
• Fake Nationality: The Dutch Sylvia Kristel portrays a French woman. Later, the character post-plastic surgery is played by Swedish Mia Nygren. In Emmanuelle 6 our hero is played by Austrian Natalie Uher.
• Follow the Leader: The first film was made following the success of Last Tango in Paris, which led to a rise in erotic films.
• Franchise Zombie: Emmanuelle was followed by countless sequels, none of them as successful or notable as the first one. The official and non-official rip-offs are difficult to keep track of, sometimes even to keep apart. As recently as 2011 a new spin-off series was launched! Even main actress Kristel's death in 2012 couldn't permanently halt this franchise.
• Money, Dear Boy: The reason Kristel appears in Emmanuelle 7/Emmanuelle's 7th Heaven.
• The Other Darrin: Mia Nygren takes over from Kristel in the fourth film. Afterwards, Emmanuelle herself becomes a Legacy Character.

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