Justine de Sade (1972)

Director:

Claude Pierson

Writers:

Huguette Boisvert (writer)
Claude Pierson (adaptation)

Release Date:

October 1976 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Therese, a beautiful but naive young girl, who finds herself being passed around from depraved pervert to depraved pervert...

Plot Keywords:

Erotic | Sex | Breasts | Kinky | Marquis De Sade

Cast

Alice Arno	...	Justine / Thérèse
Yves Arcanel	...	Dom Sévérino
Michel Bertay
Georges Beauvilliers	...	Roland
Chantal Broquet
Christian Chevreuse	...	Comte de Gernande
Franco Fantasia	...	Saint-Florent
Lida Ferro
Roberto Lande
Robert Lombard
Maurice Mirowski
Max Montavon
Diane Lepvrier	...	Comtesse de Gernande
Marco Perrin	...	Clément
Marcel Portier

Also Known As:

Justine (France) (reissue title)
Justine De Sade, Adaptation fidèle en roman-film de Claude Pierson [fr] (France) (original script title)
Justine de Sade (UK) (censored version)
The Violation of Justine (USA) (pre-release title)

Runtime:

100 min | Australia:104 min | USA:115 min (director's cut) (restored version) (DVD)

Country:

France | Italy | Canada

Language:

French

Color:

Color (Eastmancolor)

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Canada:R (Manitoba/Nova Scotia/Ontario) | France:-16 (original rating) | UK:18 (DVD rating) | Australia:R | USA:X | Germany:BPjM Restricted

Company:

Citel Films

Trivia:

Some traits of the character played by Alice Arno are inspired from Saint Therese de Lisieux, hence the name Justine/Thérèse.

Movie Connections:

Version of Marquis de Sade: Justine (1969)

Weak Sade adaptation--one step above Cinemax

This is one of at least four adaptations of the Marquis de Sade's infamous story "Justine" made in Europe in the late 60's/early 70's. It's not as good as Jess Franco's "Justine and Juliette" or the British film "Cruel Passions", but it's better than the godawful "modern-day" Swedish adaptation "Justine och Juliette". The lead is Alice Arno. She is not a great actress (she was often second-billed to Soledad Miranda or Lina Romay in Franco movies of that era), but neither were any of the other "Justines" (Romina Powers, Koo Stark, Maria Forse respectively). Arno, however, is also kind of miscast. She has a great body (and you get to see almost every inch of of it), but she's much more of a voluptuous man-eater than a wide-eyed innocent like the literary character. It doesn't help that her main foil--the character Juliet, Justine's sister who indulges in vice and prospers while Justine remains virtuous and is victimized by everyone she meets--is pretty much completely absent from this version for some reason.

This movie also has the same problem (at least, in my view)as "Justine och Juliette"--it's wall-to-wall sex scenes that seemingly go on forever. Unlike the latter film, they're totally softcore and feature attractive women (like Arno's real-life sister Chantal Broquet). But they're obviously meant for what used to be called "the raincoat crowd". And while these LONG scenes may have allowed the rain-slickered guys in the back row (or their modern-day equivalents viewing at home) to "do their thing", they actually get pretty damn boring after a while and really kill the momentum of the story. Hell, with the exception of some occasional perversity and "political incorrectness" (priest-and-nun-related sex scenes, some unconvincing scenes of bondage and abuse), you may as well just watch the crap they have on late at night on Cinemax these days. . .