Farewell, Emmanuelle

Sylvia Kristel, sexy star of the 1974 film Emmanuelle (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like many young men who grew up in the 1980s, I sometimes found myself up late at night, struggling to be quiet as I surfed the pay television channels for gratuitous nudity and adult situations.

Films like “Porky’s” and “Revenge of the Nerds” were fine, but required you to sit through cheesy B-movie plot lines just to catch a glimpse of a naked woman. Fortunately, there were more exotic and risqué movies to be found, among them the 1970s erotic feature “Emmanuelle” starring the lovely Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel.

“Emmanuelle” followed a man and his beautiful wife as they embarked on sexual adventures in Thailand. And for a young, impressionable boy like me, the film became legendary for showing more skin than all the American teen sex films combined. Sure, there was still a ridiculous plot to follow, but the naughty scenes came faster and with greater volume.

The fact that I remember the film three decades later attests to its status as skin flick extraordinaire.

Sylvia Kristel just died from cancer at the untimely age of 60, but her kinky sex-capades will live on to be enjoyed by endless teenage boys to come. Even internet porn cannot compare to Emmanuelle’s place in erotic movie history.