ThiefHott Too much of everything

Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Reptileenbu Did you people see the same film I saw?

CommentsXp Best movie ever!

Flixer1957 Derived from a novel by the Marquis De Sade, this is a prime example of Jess Franco having a chance to do something good and outrageous–and blowing it altogether.Sisters Justine and Juliette (Romina Power, Maria Rohm) go their separate ways after the death of their parents. Juliette spends her life chasing degradation and growing rich. Justine pursues virtue only to suffer at the hands of one pervert after another including Jack Palance who gives the overacting job of his career–and for Palance that covers a lot of territory. She also crosses paths with Mercedes MacCambridge as a whore-mistress imprisoned for murder. Franco regular Howard Vernon hams it up in one scene. Akim Tamiroff, Sylvia Koscina and Rosalba Neri also co-star in this mess. Franco himself appears as an emcee in what passed for a strip joint in the 18th Century. He may be flawed as a director but here, he manages to out-act most of the cast.Up to a point, DEADLY SANCTUARY is accurate in terms of its dim world-view. Crime DOES pay, good guys DO finish last and if the good don't die young, it's only so they can put up with a ton of crap while they're still alive. The preaching at the end, about how Juliette's life is empty but Justine will get her reward in heaven, is an unfortunate carry-over from the novel JUSTINE itself.Good news: Klaus Kinski plays the Marquis De Sade. The bad news is that his screen time is brief. He's taken to prison in a four-minute prologue, and the rest of the movie is punctuated by shots of him scrawling with a quill pen and expounding, in badly-dubbed voice-over, on the misfortunes of virtue. His visions of bondage and torture in the prologue are the most enthralling parts of the film. Most people who had Kinski under contract as France's favorite nobleman would have written a whole film around him, turned him loose and let him do some real damage. Not ol' Jess and producer Harry Alan Towers–and some fool even misspelled Kinski's last name in the end credits.Redeeming qualities include rousing (for Franco) crowd scenes, a violent prison break, eye-catching costumes and a great Bruno Nicolai score. However, despite outbursts of sadism and occasional shots of nipples the size of hob-nails, the main effect of this flick is to cure insomnia. And it's not even Franco's worst...

MARIO GAUCI I watched this last week, my sixth Jess Franco movie. After the relative disappointment with EUGENIE DE SADE (1970), I had hoped that the next Franco would relight my initial admiration for his work. In this respect, I was not a little wary of trying JUSTINE, as its reception on the Internet since its DVD release has not been exactly positive! But since it was the only thing available at the moment… Well, I wasn't wrong about my reservations regarding this film, as I must say that I found it truly abysmal! Not so much a waste of time as a wasted opportunity: as Rod Barnett had said in the recent FEMALE VAMPIRE (1973; a film I haven't watched yet, by the way) thread, I think that Franco fails even here to bring out the full potential of the definitely intriguing plot - despite having the biggest budget of his entire career to work with!Still, what I find most disconcerting about the film is the ongoing parade of embarrassing performances from some interesting (i.e. formerly respectable) actors: Akim Tamiroff, Mercedes McCambridge and, worst of all, Jack Palance. The other notables from the cast - Klaus Kinski, Sylva Koscina and Howard Vernon – acquit themselves far better, also because they were already practiced at this sort of thing. McCambridge's raspy voice is given a thorough work-out here, as though she were already attempting to 'find' the demon voice for THE EXORCIST (1973)! Palance, on the other hand, gives new meaning to the expression 'chewing up the scenery' - the fact that he was drunk all through the shooting of the picture could hardly bode well for some form of coherence in his performance – and, while I couldn't help (or indeed stop) laughing when he was on screen, deep down I felt really sorry for him as he clearly did not belong there!!Despite his brief and silent appearance, Klaus Kinksi makes for an appropriately moody Marquis De Sade, who grows increasingly paranoid as the story he is writing unfolds on the screen; actually this linking sequence is quite atmospheric: one online review even compares it to the Gothic horror films of Mario Bava, and I can certainly see where he is coming from with such an argument. Maria Rohm again proves to be an asset to the film (though she isn't nearly as effective here as she was in EUGENIE…THE STORY OF HER JOURNEY INTO PERVERSION [1969]): a clearly intelligent woman who possesses both great charisma and genuine sex appeal. Perhaps the film's best sequence is her heartless drowning of the Rosemary Dexter character, formerly her mentor and lover (needless to say, the fact that both women go through the scene stark naked made it all the more memorable!).As for Romina Power, this may come as a surprise to you but I didn't think she was as bad as most online reviews would have it. Of course, apart from her constant innocent demeanor, she never really captures Justine's essential personality (especially her gradual acceptance of masochism). However, you may remember that in my review of EUGENIE, I had similar reservations about Marie Liljedahl - though, to be fair to her, she certainly came off as less 'wooden'; then again, most of the performances in JUSTINE are terrible anyway, so it really doesn't matter! Perhaps, for someone like Francesco and me, we are more responsive to her 'acting' because we are used to watching her on Italian TV – whereas the rest of you will probably have to make do with this single, admittedly unimpressive performance! Still, echoing another review I read of the film, I'm not sure that Rosemary Dexter (apparently Franco's personal choice) could have done much better with the title role, though one cannot really judge her talent from the thankless role she was relegated to playing!(Useless bit of trivia: Romina Power regularly comes to Malta on holiday – perhaps the world's largest collection of her father Tyrone's ephemera resides in our country, believe it or not! - and it is said that she often takes a villa at Naxxar to live in; Naxxar, of course, is the village in Malta where I live!)For me, the best thing about the entire film is Bruno Nicolai's masterful score, which is perhaps wasted here! At the very least, however, one could say that JUSTINE is good to look at and that it is packed with incident, so it does not really feel slow (like EUGENIE, for instance) throughout its lengthy duration…if only what was on screen were more genuinely compelling!As of now, I stand about 50/50 on Franco (from the very few titles that I have sampled) and, in all honesty, I'm beginning to despair of ever finding another film to equal EUGENIE or THE DIABOLICAL DOCTOR Z (1965). Still, I have high hopes for SUCCUBUS (1967) – which will be my next venture into Franco's endless canon – as well as VENUS IN FURS (1968) and LORNA THE EXORCIST (1974), though I'll only be able to watch the last two if the local censors deign to release them from their clutches!

Infofreak I usually love Jess Franco movies, and the thought of him directing De Sade's infamous 'Justine' looked like it was going to be one of his most outrageous films, especially considering legendary nut job Klaus Kinski stars as the Marquis! Unfortunately this one turned out to be a major disappointment. Kinski has little more than a cameo, and the movie is surprisingly tame. It's also way too long and gets very dull in places. This was apparently the biggest budget Franco ever got to work with (a little over a million, which for him was ENORMOUS!). Whether that was the problem, or his beautiful but boring leading lady Romina Power, I don't know, but this ties with 'The Bloody Judge' as the lamest Franco movie I've ever seen. Maria Rohm (who appeared in Franco's 'Eugenie', a much better De Sade adaptation) easily outshines Power but doesn't get enough screen time. Kinski and the other guest stars didn't do much for me apart from Jack Palance who really hams it up as a perverted monk. He's fun to watch, and Franco regular (around forty movies!) Howard Vernon plays one of his colleagues. The bigger the Franco fan you are the more you will get out of 'Justine', but it's still far from his best work, and I can't say I'll be in any hurry to watch it again.

campblood13 I went into this film expecting lots of nudity and bad acting, as it turned out I got the opposite of both. The star of the film Romina Power is wonderful as well as beautiful. Some other reviewers have said she appeared dull and uninterested, but I don't think that is the case. I think her spaced out look was a cunning ploy to take advantage of situations when needed. Of course she was a virgin and untrusting of men which also lead to her innocence.The beautiful setting and costumes should have won the Academy Award. :) Look for Jack Palance over-acting as a sexual deviant monk, who attempts to free young Justine. Jack and his fellow monks are studying the power of PLEASURE!!! They should have shown this at the Academy Awards the year after Palance won for City Slickers, and the whole place would have fell down laughing. I liked this movie, the uncut version runs 2 hours on DVD and is well worth it. I never got bored with the film. 5/10 Average, but better than I thought it would be.