Emily (film)

Emily, also known as The Awakening of Emily, is a British film of 1976 set in the 1920s directed by Henry Herbert, produced and written by Christopher Neame, and starring Koo Stark. 

Although R-rated, the film is considered avant-garde rather than pornographic, as is sometimes claimed, with a cast of mainstream actors including Victor Spinetti, Sarah Brackett, Koo Stark, Constantin de Goguel, Ina Skriver, Jeremy Child, Jack Haig, and Richard Oldfield. Its soundtrack was composed and sung by the singer and poet Rod McKuen, while Jacquemine Charrott Lodwidge was art director.

The main setting of the film is Wilton House, which was the director's ancestral seat, and the countryside around it.

Emily was a moderate success at the box office in the 1970s, but in the early 1980s it had a revival and did far better, gaining publicity due to a romance between Koo Stark and Prince Andrew. Around that time the film was often shown on HBO and other cable TV channels.

Background
The film was produced by Christopher Neame, who also wrote the screenplay, claiming to have completed it in seventeen hours. It was intended as a vehicle for him to move into production, and Emily did indeed become his first film. He secured the services of Henry Herbert as director, together with his large house and estate in Wiltshire as location. Neame later wrote that this was "a country house of faded grandeur, but it suited the narrative well with its plush reds and rich greens, all set in a golden landscape". Neame went on to produce Danger UXB, The Flame Trees of Thika, The Irish R.M., Soldier, Soldier, and Monsignor Quixote.

The director, Henry Herbert, had begun by making documentaries about musicians but was directing only his second feature film. His first had been Malachi's Cove (1972), which he had both written and directed, based on a short story by Anthony Trollope. The art director of Emily, Jacquemine Charrott Lodwidge, had also worked on Malachi's Cove. The film editor, Keith Palmer, had worked with Lodwidge on another country house picture, Blue Blood (1973), filmed at the nearby Longleat House. The film was Peter Bennett's first as assistant director.

Synopsis
Emily Foster (Koo Stark) is an American-born seventeen-year-old brought up in London. Her father died when she was a small child, while her mother, Margaret Foster (Sarah Brackett), is supported by a lover. The film, set in 1928, follows Emily as she returns home from a finishing school in Switzerland to her mother's country house in the English countryside,  where she meets several characters who would like to seduce her, and follows her induction into sensual pleasures. Richard Walker (Victor Spinetti), her mother's lover, is a middle-aged man-about-town who quietly sets his sights on Emily, while a young American writer and schoolteacher named James Wise (Richard Oldfield) tries to impress her by sensual acrobatics in his flying machine, but her first sexual experience is a lesbian encounter with Augustine Wain (Ina Skriver), a Swedish painter who lives nearby. Emily loses her virginity to the painter's husband, Rupert Wain (Constantin de Goguel).

Meanwhile, perhaps intended to mark the contrast in the sexuality of the different classes at the time, housemaid Rachel (Jane Hayden) and her soldier boyfriend Billy (David Auker) are engaged to be married, but Rachel tries to insist on waiting until after their wedding before they make love.

Reception
The critics did not like the script. Alan Brien wrote in The Observer that Neame and Herbert should have been less tame with a scene in the drawing room, as censorship had been relaxed and the sexuality could have been more explicit. For Kenneth Tynan, Emily "failed to get to first base" in his realm of eroticism. The historian Simon Sebag Montefiore went to see the film while at school, expecting a skin flick, thanks to sensational press coverage, and later described it as "one of the biggest disappointments of my adolescence".

The Variety review was a little kinder: "Story set in England in 1928 deals with teenage Emily returning from finishing school and her subsequent sexual awakening. It is sufficiently well told to sustain screen interest throughout although the acting performance of the cast is collectively unimpressive. Director Henry Herbert lacks consistency, but given the modest budget has put a lot on the screen. Rod McKuen's music score is incongruous at times and never outstanding. A first-time effort for producer Christopher Neame (son of Ronald), this Brent Walker release is a classier than normal British-made entry with highly effective camera work by Jack Hildyard. It has good international playoff potential in selected situations with some strong built in exploitation angles, notably topliner Koo Stark, who will look good on posters, front of house stills, etc."

The Motion Picture Guide (1986) commented "Rod McKuen contributes a typically wretched soundtrack".

In their book Great Houses of England & Wales (1994), Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd and Christopher Simon Sykes later wrote "The present Lord Pembroke is (as Henry Herbert) a film and television director, best known for the Civil War drama series By the Sword Divided and for Emily, starring Miss Koo Stark."

Aftermath
The film's leading lady, Koo Stark, suffered in later years from press misrepresentation. In a libel action in 2007, she won an apology and substantial damages from Zoo Weekly, which had described her as a porn star. She commented "I am relieved that my name has been cleared of this false, highly damaging and serious allegation." In June 2019 Stark again won damages for libel in an action against Viacom, whose MTV company had referred to her in the same terms.

Cast
 Koo Stark as Emily Foster
 Sarah Brackett as Margaret Foster
 Victor Spinetti as Richard Walker
 Jane Hayden as Rachel
 Constantin de Goguel as Rupert Wain
 Ina Skriver as Augustine Wain
 Richard Oldfield as James Wise
 David Auker as Billy Edwards
 Jeremy Child as Gerald Andrews
 Jack Haig as Taxi Driver
 Jeannie Collings as Rosalind
 Pamela Cundell as Mrs Prince

Crew
Director: Henry Herbert, 17th Earl of Pembroke
Producer: Christopher Neame
Writer: Christopher Neame, as Anthony Morris
Assistant Director: Peter Bennett
Music: Rod McKuen
Cinematography: Jack Hildyard
Film Editor: Keith Palmer
Art Director: Jacquemine Charrott Lodwidge
Production Manager: Caroline Langley, as Caroline Neame

Rating
In 1983, the film was rejected by the British Board of Film Classification because of a scene showing two women together in a shower.

Notes

External links

Category:British erotic films
Category:British films
Category:1976 films
Category:English-language films
Category:British aviation films
Category:Films directed by Henry Herbert
Category:Films scored by Rod McKuen
Category:Films shot in Wiltshire
Category:Teensploitation
Category:Films set in 1928