Rent Marquis de Sade's Justine (1969)

Spoilers follow ... - Marquis de Sade's Justine review by NP

The opening scenes are like a parody. Klaus Kinski, imprisoned, dreams of shackled, naked girls in a flurry of out-of-focus zoom-ins courtesy of Director Jess Franco, with a thumping, grandiloquent musical score that quite defies the fact that nothing of any merit is actually happening. It is as if Bruno Nicolai’s soundtrack has swept in from some spectacular epic to accompany these scenes; a towering presence Kinski undoubtedly was, but even he doesn’t merit such extravagance when he is, in effect, doing nothing.

Adding the usual spice to the cast are Franco friends Maria Rohm, Howard Vernon and a seemingly inebriated Jack Palance. The performances here are larger than life, and such a style befits this a huge, expensive looking, ribald romp full of exotic characters and costumes and locations, where everyone we meet could conservatively be described as ‘heightened’ – except, perhaps understandably, for Romina Power (daughter of Tyrone), who gives a very grounded performance as Justine. Rather unkindly, Jess Franco has made it clear her casting was forced on him and that he would have chosen someone else. Charisma she may lack compared to the extravagance of those around her, but for the sake of contrast if nothing else, her performance just about works. "Most of the time [Power] didn't even know we were shooting," Franco is quoted as saying.

As for Kinski’s appearances, they are silent and they do not integrate with anyone else. The possibilities between the eccentricities of Kinski and Franco were never fully realised, it seems to me. The closest we have come to realising the meeting of these two greats comes together in 1976’s ‘Jack the Ripper’, but despite how enjoyable that film was, one would have hoped for a less restrained team-up.

‘Justine…’ film has been heavily censored for some releases, not for reasons of graphic nudity or gore (at least, I don’t think so – it is very tame on that score), but probably because the 124 minute version I have seen is way, way too long to justify the character of Justine falling into one mishap after another, which is the storyline in a nutshell.

My favourite Franco take on this idea is ‘Marquis de Sade's Philosophy in the Boudoir' (1970), which seems much more low-budget, but condenses the tale more successfully.