Cruel Passion

The great B movie actress Glory Annen broke into show bizniz with this film. She plays a small part as a prostitute. Not a glamorous role but just seeing her on screen in anything is worth the price of the rental! This movie is real, real bad though. The sex isn't really portrayed as enjoyable, just trashy and depressing. Nothing wrong with trashy sex mind you, but just leave out the depressing part is all, ya dig? Anyway, its worth just to see the sexy Glory Annen in her first role.

It could be conjectured that if Koo Stark had not appeared in this film and a couple of others like it that she would have ended up as Duchess of York.Was that a fair exchange? Basically it is a fairly tawdry film.In the last quarter of an hour nearly everyone,including a dead woman,gets raped or killed or both.Not very pleasant.

The version I own is the unrated De Sade's Justine, proudly displaying Kook Stark's name on the cover. While she's tender and lovely in this movie, there is room for an exciting and tantalizing plot which never develops.

The acting is mediocre, sets/scenery are good but the dialog is contrived making the whole thing a bit of a disappointment. There's not even enough nudity/debauchery to excite much more than a 12 year old male.

Yes, there was some really, really bad acting in this film, but it wasn't done by Koo Stark. She was beautiful, demure, and a pretty decent Justine. (It's often hard to judge an actor in a really bad movie.) i have never seen Stark elsewhere, and would need to do so before deciding if she were a hack. About the material itself, I have read some Sade, (although not "Justine") and it is some really vile stuff. Someone mentioned that the sex scenes were depressing and un-erotic. That describes Sade's stuff on a very mild day. He was a fanatical atheist, and took great delight in portraying sex as sacrilege, and all religion as hypocritical.

I have read de Sade and read about him and so was a little excited when I saw the title but couldn't wait for the end, fast forwarding through the last 15 minutes.

The acting is not even second rate, the script poorly conceived and written, the direction is amateurish and the production values almost non-existent. The story line is convoluted and doesn't follow any rhyme or reason as far as script writing techniques. Characters are not clearly introduced nor is their relation to each other and it's hard to care about the characters much less sympathize or empathize with them.

A difficult book to translate into even a watch able movie, this fails in every aspect.