Le Divin Marquis

At the tender age of 17 I was dying to see this flick but blinked and it disappeared. Around that time i was interested in Sade (or "De Sade'), whose writings were being pushed by Grove Press. I read bits and pieces of his work which thrives on irony and paradox, staples of French lit. Those looking for cheap thrills in Sade will be disappointed as even the freakiest activities depicted are written in ironically refined language./ Anyhow, the person who wrote, "We see God the way a blind man sees colors," is depicted here as a lavender-clad fop w/ a crazy priest uncle (john Huston chews up the lavender here). Sade's real first name was Donatien Alphonse; here, God knows why, he's "Louis."/ The scattered plot, the period psychedelic colors, cheapo effects, and fleeting t and a typify early '70s "sexploitation" flicks. Most hilarious (and frustrating to some) is a silly, frantic "orgy" scene obscured by a lava-lampish red tint. Directed by Hollywood vet Wm. Wyler who tried liked hell to avoid that X rating via quick cutaways and a lot of running around, ripping up pillowcases, smashing champagne glasses, etc---but no screwing! So why'd the code bunch lump in "de Sade" w/ "Curious Yellow" which went all the way? Well, the name had a rep preceding it./ It is a fun movie to watch, the sumptuous sets and garish clothes shot in a fuzzy wash that shoots for "art". / In an ironic, nostalgic way, i appreciate "de Sade." It looks CHEAP, trashy, while EVERYTHING in film today is so high def as to be dull. "de Sade" sucks, but i love it. It's stupid, pretentious, smarmy FUN, an unintentional comedy. Those were the good old days!

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!

My friends and I should have known we were in trouble when the opening credits had that late-60s GoGo/orchestrated music and a James Bond-ish red dot with morphing black figures dancing around it. To give it some modicum of credit, it was so absurd and had such awful acting in the first 20 minutes that it showed some so-bad-it's-good promise. Sadly, the same scene replayed itself another 8 times through the movie, putting me, at least, to sleep. And the movie had nothing whatsoever to do with the Marquis de Sade. As my friend said after the movie, "It didn't work on so many levels."

2001 will never be the same.

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.

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).