De Sade (1969)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Sadly Over-hyped

Memorable, crazy movie

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

The audience for this curious tale of the man whose name created the term sadomasochism gets to see his personal life through two angles. First, there is the reality of what is happening, and then there is how he apparently views it, in red filter tones that look like something out of your worst nightmare. A ton of bare busted women all get physically and sexually abused by this aristocrat who demands pain with pleasure simply because it amuses him. If he isn't whipping some female, he is reminding them of his power over them. Taking his story back to his childhood and the abuse is from his wicked uncle, John Huston, this still doesn't get any sympathy into his story. Basically however, there really is no story and while artistically impressive it does not make for a good tale of debauchery. What could have been a psychological look into the life of a man who didn't even warrant a listing in my biographical dictionary which lists many people who probably never even get looked up.Told through an apparent stage performance of him looking back at his life with the ghostly presence of uncle Huston, this suffers not only from the lack of a real story but many dry patches that create a dull flow. A better version of the de Sade story wasn't actually a biography, but a 4 film where on alleged descendants of the marquis begins to believe that he is him. So for entertainment value at least, check out Mickey Hargitay in Bloody Pit of Horror and skip this one unless witnessing somebody's acid trip is truly your thing.

I wish they had saved the German version of this one, but alas, only the AIP version seems to turn up, though most versions are barely longer than the one USA network ran in their infancy. What was once given an "X" rating, barely rises above PG-13 standards for this new millennium. Dullea, fresh from "2001", is out of place amidst the tame exploitation, but gives it a good try. John Huston, in the midst of a long string of aging weirdo roles, steals the show easily. The script by Richard Matheson, is well done, but manhandled by the multiple directors different approaches, and the different exploitation requirements of the various producers. It easily extends the normal AIP formula, but falls short of it's goal to cross into more "Adult" film-making. Not worthless, but not all that thrilling, with much "dead Air"

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).

I haven't seen Clark Gable in the now-mythic PARNELL, but KeirDullea, surely recruited for his hotness in 2001, takes the cake inthis 1969 A.I.P. telling of the life of the great whippersnapper. Theidea of translating the agonies and ecstasies of Sade into drive-interms is mouth-watering, but, aside from a few Jess Francozooms into undulating backsides (shot through whorehouse-redfilters), you're stuck in snoozeville with an empty tank of gas.Worse (or perhaps better?), Dullea manages to make everyeighteenth-century line sound like a college basketball player'sattempt not to cry in front of Coach.