Absolutely amazing

A Disappointing Continuation

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Considering that it is penned by the late, great Richard Matheson and directed by Cy Endfield (of Zulu fame), with additional scenes helmed by Roger Corman, the credentials seem to be in place for De Sade to be a rather fascinating movie. The talent behind the camera is more than matched in front of it too, with a cast of some distinction including Keir Dullea, John Huston, Lilli Palmer and Senta Berger. Despite the promising elements, alas, the film is an absolute damp squib. It fails as art, it fails as exploitation; and as entertainment it offers virtually nothing. The film doesn't so much miss an opportunity as collapse with scarcely a whimper.Fugitive the Marquis De Sade (Keir Dullea) seeks refuge at his ancestral home, where he is persuaded to watch a bizarre play arranged for his entertainment by his uncle, the Abbe (John Huston). The play depicts a distorted recount of the Marquis's own life, and is intercut with his own fragmentary flashbacks to his earlier life and debaucheries. Much is made of the De Sade's uneasy link to Madame De Montreuil (Lilli Palmer), mother of two daughters, both of whom have relationships with the young Marquis. He reluctantly marries the eldest sister, Renee (Anna Massey), even though he finds her dull and plain and lusts much more openly after her younger sister Anne (Senta Berger). De Sade mistreats Renee horribly, and is involved in debauchery after debauchery, orgy after orgy, scandal after scandal; bringing great shame upon the family and earning himself a reputation as a debased and depraved individual.So, where does a film about such a potentially intriguing subject go so horribly wrong? The blame can be apportioned quite evenly – first comes Matheson's script: a dreadful mess which attempts, unsuccessfully, to evoke a nightmarish dream, fragmented memories of a dying man. Second is the lacklustre performance of Dullea as the title character, a crashing bore as interpreted by the actor (he is totally upstaged by everyone around him, particularly Palmer). And thirdly, the attempts to inject permissive, orgiastic and titillating excesses – sex and depravity chief amongst them – are woefully unconvincing. Dullea romps beneath the bedsheets with several women at once, pouring wine into their mouths while gorging on grapes, but the overwhelming impression one gets is of something utterly unerotic and unstimulating. The character looks more like a 'Jack the Lad' - a 'swinger' for want of a better word – than a dangerous and perverted corrupter of young souls. The film is at least richly photographed, with lavish sets and costumes, but these touches do not save it. They merely nudge it a notch or two above the dreaded one- star rating that it would otherwise deserve. Whichever way you look at it De Sade is a notable failure, a film as forgotten and obscure as it deserves to be,

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.

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).