Review: Marquis de Sade: Justine

Set in 18^th century France, Romina Power and Maria Rohm play Justine and Juliet, sisters forced to leave their convent after their mother dies and their father basically abandons them in financial ruin. Juliet finds employment and shelter in a brothel, whilst Justine goes it alone and encounters a series of mostly users and abusers. Akim Tamiroff is the first such abuser who hires Justine as his servant, Horst Frank is the creepy Marquis de Bressac, Mercedes McCambridge plays a prisoner, whilst Jack Palance and Howard Vernon play a members of an Ascetic order who are really just sexual deviants. Klaus Kinski appears as the Marquis de Sade himself in wraparound scenes.

 

When you notice the music and costuming in a Jesus Franco film, something is clearly amiss. A great cast fails to inject much life into this lush but fairly boring 2+ hour (in uncut form) costume drama from the king of zoom lens Spanish sleaze, director Jesus Franco (“99 Women”, “Vampyros Lesbos”, “Eugenie – The Story of Her Journey into Perversion”). Franco doesn’t do anything disastrously wrong at the helm, it’s just that no one’s watching a Jess Franco film looking for serious costume drama and it’s not really his strength. Romina Power (daughter of Tyrone) is pretty, but Maria Rohm has the more interesting character to play here and the lack of emphasis given to that character is a big part of the problem. A film about her character and evil Horst Frank would’ve been of far more interest to me. As is, the majority focus is on Power’s character and story, and she’s comparatively dull, her storyline rather repetitive. Klaus Kinski, meanwhile is badly wasted in a rather dull wraparound part as de Sade himself.

 

It’s up to supporting players like Mercedes McCambridge, Howard Vernon (with Tommy Wiseau hairdo), and Jack Palance to keep you (barely) awake. Palance overacting a storm in a truly hilariously silly performance is one of his strangest appearances on screen. It’s a shame then that it takes so long for Palance and Vernon to even turn up. The final 30 minutes are crazy fun at times and more indicative of its kinky maker than what precedes it. I’m not saying it’s largely some kind of chaste Disney film, far from it. However, it’s certainly quite dull, clichéd and fairly anonymous for the most part. Intermittent kinky fun and a few solid supporting performances aren’t enough to get past the long dull spots.

 

The final third is truly bizarro stuff, unfortunately the majority of this 1969 costume drama are a bit of a boring cliché that any number of filmmakers could’ve made. Focussing on the wrong sister here proves a pretty big mistake in particular, but I also just don’t think this was the best route for Franco to take overall. Franco was at his best (and sometimes worst) when sticking to his sleazy milieu, at least when staying in his wheelhouse his films don’t tend to be dull like this one too frequently is. I can’t say I overly enjoyed this Franco film though the music score by Bruno Nicolai (“Eugenie – The Story of Her Journey into Perversion”, “Four Flies on Grey Velvet”, “Caligula”) is choice. The film might actually work best for non-‘Francophiles’.

 

Rating: C