Nevertheless, Verstraten has plenty to say about not only Pastorale 1943, but the entire Dutch film history.

It must be said, however, that Verstappen photographs the German swastika with appropriate heavy ominousness and directs this film with restrained surehandedness. In this homage to Lewis Carroll and "old dark house" movies, Kristel does her best with the passive character. Richey’s tome is a beauty unto itself, sweetened by purchase-incentive perks such as a separate poster (not the same poster the Blu-ray set comes with) and the author’s personal autograph.

The book is divided into seven sections covering twenty-three movies, with the final section devoted to unrealized projects. JR: Even though I do think her career happened at the ideal moment, Sylvia was far ahead of her time as well, which is one reason that more later sex-positive feminists like Camille Paglia were much more accepting in retrospect than some of her peers. SOM: In a lot of writing about, for example, Elvis, there’s a focus on what-might-have-been, the what-ifs. He makes the case, painstakingly, meticulously, that her work was unique, that she wasn’t a, say, B-movie Brigitte Bardot.

Sylvia From Emmanuelle to Chabrol also contains many vintage reviews and interviews with Sylvia Kristel never before translated into English, and takes a look at Sylvia's brief music recording career as well. Some of the especially English language articles and reviews from the period are so beyond sexist that it is shocking. It’s a bummer that works like Une Femme Fidele, La Marge and Alice have yet to get their due, but they will. Sylvia might have never performed Shakespeare in the Park, but I believe if her career hadn’t been derailed by her time in Hollywood in the late seventies there is no telling just how much nuanced and richer her performances would have become.In a tale brimming with confrontational imagery and out-there filmmaking, narrative cohesion was never high on Robbe-Grillet’s priority list for Playing with Fire. Black Cobra Woman ( Eva Nera, also released as Emmanuelle and the Deadly Black Cobra) (1976), directed by Joe D'Amato. A more certain claim would be the obviousness in naming the movie after Kristel’s character- her first name only, at that. Aloof and wielding a royal fatale quality (circa 1891, when the film takes place), she has been, as the song is sung, the ruin of many a poor boy.