| Klaus Kinski | ... | Marquis De Sade | |
| Romina Power | ... | Justine | |
| Maria Rohm | ... | Juliette | |
| Rosemary Dexter | ... | Claudine | |
| Carmen de Lirio | ... | Madame De Buisson | |
| Akim Tamiroff | ... | Du Harpin | |
| Gustavo Re | ... | Derroches | |
| Mercedes McCambridge | ... | Madame Dusbois | |
| Serena Vergano | ... | Prisoner | |
| José Manuel Martín | ... | Victor | |
| Mike Brendel | ... | Pierre | |
| Harald Leipnitz | ... | Raymond | |
| Horst Frank | ... | Marquis de Bressac | |
| Angel Petit | ... | Jasmin | |
| Sylva Koscina | ... | Marquise de Bressac | |
| Howard Vernon | ... | Clement | |
| Jack Palance | ... | Antonin | |
| Rosalba Neri | ... | Florette | |
| Claudia Gravy | ... | Olivia | |
| Gérard Tichy | ... | Comte Courville | |
| rest of cast listed alphabetically: | |||
| Luis Ciges | ... | (uncredited) | |
| Jesus Franco | ... | White turbaned host in theatre (uncredited) | |
Directed by | |||
| Jesus Franco | (as Jess Franco) | ||
Writing credits(in alphabetical order) | ||
| Marquis de Sade | novel "Justine ou les malheurs de la vertu" (uncredited) | |
| Harry Alan Towers | (as Peter Welbeck) | |
Produced by | |||
| Harry Alan Towers | .... | producer | |
Original Music by | |||
| Bruno Nicolai | |||
Cinematography by | |||
| Manuel Merino | |||
Film Editing by | |||
| Nicholas Wentworth | |||
Art Direction by | |||
| Santiago Ontañón | |||
Production Management | |||
| Juan Estelrich | .... | production supervisor | |
Second Unit Director or Assistant Director | |||
| Ricardo Franco | .... | assistant director | |
Camera and Electrical Department | |||
| Javier Pérez Zofio | .... | camera operator (as Javier Zofio) | |
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| 99 Women | Cruel Passion | Chained Heat | Love Letters of a Portuguese Nun | Venus in Furs |
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| Full cast and crew | Company credits | External reviews |
| News articles | IMDb Drama section | IMDb Italy section |
'Marquis de Sade's 'Justine'' (1968) is easily Jess Franco's most accomplished film, esp. from a technical standpoint, backed by the biggest budget he would ever have. Rich, brilliant colors, skin aplenty, a few perversities, and strange performances from Klaus Kinski, Jack Palance and Mercedes Mccambridge make for an entertaining but relatively tame Franco outing. To boot, Jack Palance's performance ranks as possibly the most bizarre ever seen on film. The dvd includes a revealing 20-minute 'making of' documentary featuring an extensive, contemporary interview with director Franco, and he doesn't hold back. Franco states that Palance was sauced during the entire shoot, drinking red wine all day, each day, starting around 7a.m.
Kinski's role (as de Sade) was originally handed to Orson Welles, but once Welles read the script, he claimed that he simply could not play the part because it included scenes of erotica. In reality, Welles would have had to do a scene with several totally naked women, and this may have made him uncomfortable and nervous. Interestingly, the de Sade character has no lines, and Kinski's scenes are just a bunch of cutaways of him sitting/pacing in a prison cell, mentally tortured, trying to write 'Justine'.
Franco intended to create an explicitly nasty, masochistic film faithful to de Sade's writing; however, according to Franco, he was forced into a watered-down, `Snow-White-lost-in-the-woods' direction because of the producer's decision to cast Tyrone Power's daughter, Romina Power, in the title role. `She was a passenger, wandering around,' Franco scoffed. `She was like a piece of furniture. It was as if I was making Bambi 2'. The role was intended for Rosemary Dexter, who appears in the film in a lesser role.
Franco's version of 'Justine' is not as grim or as depressing as Chris Boger's 'Cruel Passion' (1977), starring Koo Stark, but it's also not as nasty or as perverse. Too bad for Franco fans. --- david ross smith