O Insaciável Marquês de Sade

American International Pictures rarely made dull movies. Their movies may have been junk food but they were very tasty. This was AIP's attempt at a thinking man's exploitation film. Lavish sets, Masterpiece Theater dialogue and an overall air of pretentiousness makes this film a real snooze. The fact that the film uses a fractured non-narrative structure makes the film even more pointless and boring. Only during the last 15 minutes does the film come to life as De Sade and his cohorts embark on an orgy of destruction and sex (rendered in hilariously psychedelic 60s fashion).

Though I did not see this movie until recently I remember it's theatrical release in 1969. This was the film that Keir Dullea made immediately after his performance in "2001: A Space Odyssey", and by sheer irony the two films seem to be connected. As David Bowman his last scenes in "2001" took place in a French room that was decorated in French style. He left that room, in a very mysterious way, in that movie and seems, in "De Sade", to have continued with the French decor. However, his performance in this movie is very disappointing- particularly compared to his performance in "2001". In fact, the entire movie is a big disappointment.

I am of the opinion that if you have naked women and sex in a movie then it cannot be a total flop. And, in fact, the naked women in this film were the only thing that made this movie bearable to watch. As this movie was made in 1969 there were some aspects of female nudity they still could not show on the screen- they had to concentrate on breasts and butts back then. Nothing wrong with womens breasts and butts, but the total nudity that could be shown in movies by the late 1970s was still off limits in 1969. If you examine this film you will see that though there is a lot of female nudity in it; there is still a lot of "suggestion"-they could not show everything back then. And, that includes the sadistic scenes. Some sadism is shown but not enough to show how De Sade earned his reputation.

One very good thing about the DVD release of this movie is the recent (in the year 2001) interview with the writer Richard Mathison concerning the historical Marquis De Sade. He gives a bit of history about De Sade, and how he was actually something of a nice guy in real life. The movie could have taken an interesting turn (it almost did but not quite) on examining whether or not we are all sadists at heart. Sometimes the best thriller or mystery story is the one that ends with the perpetrator being discovered and finding that the bad guy is the one whose face is seen in the mirror (i.e. the observer). But, as disorganized as this movie is that aspect was not shown.

I remember this movie been considered disappointing in 1969. Thirty Eight years later it still is.

Looking at it today, this film is a pretty tame story of the infamous DeSade, but at least it is the most highest budget version of th story, with a much better cast for this sort of material. What was once deemed X is pretty tame R by todays standards. Keir Dullea makes a very convincing DeSade without overacting, and John Huston brings integrity to the film with his powering presence. And the soundtrack is very good, the only thing odd is the beginning credit animation sequence, which looks like it came out of a psychedelic film, as you see a shadow painting of a bird man juggling a ball, then turning into a guy and a chick and a horse!!! Looks like it belongs in an animation short or something. Still check it out if you want to see a "Hollywood" version of the infamous character, told way too many times in cheapo Euro versions!

I haven't seen Clark Gable in the now-mythic PARNELL, but Keir

Dullea, surely recruited for his hotness in 2001, takes the cake in

this 1969 A.I.P. telling of the life of the great whippersnapper. The

idea of translating the agonies and ecstasies of Sade into drive-in

terms is mouth-watering, but, aside from a few Jess Franco

zooms into undulating backsides (shot through whorehouse-red

filters), you're stuck in snoozeville with an empty tank of gas.

Worse (or perhaps better?), Dullea manages to make every

eighteenth-century line sound like a college basketball player's

attempt not to cry in front of Coach.

Keir Dullea may be many things as an actor, but lewd and kinky don't immediately come to mind. Dullea is capable if oddly cast as the sadomasochistic Marquis de Sade, his storied life retold to him by his uncle, who presents our protagonist's journey as a play that he moves in and out of. "De Sade" shows some bold directorial touches for a film that had such a checkered history (Michael Reeves signed on to direct but died; Cy Endfield was brought on but suffered a breakdown, leading to uncredited fill-ins directed by original co-screenwriter Roger Corman to pad the running time). Originally X-rated, the movie has scenes of erotica (lots of naked breasts and bums--though not Dullea's), and yet the orgies are perhaps the film's weakest link. American-International Pictures suffered a financial loss when the results of "De Sade" failed to meet anyone's expectations. For his part, screenwriter Richard Matheson claimed his original script was just fine, it was Endfield's direction that loused everything up. *1/2 from ****