''De Sade'' (German: ''Das Ausschweifende Leben des Marquis De Sade'') is a 1969 American-German

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super- ...

directed by

Cy Endfield Cyril Raker Endfield (November 10, 1914 – April 16, 1995) was an American screenwriter, director, author, magician and inventor. Having been named as a Communist at a House Un-American Activities Committee hearing and subsequently blacklisted, ...

and starring

Keir Dullea Keir Atwood Dullea (; born May 30, 1936) is an American actor. He played astronaut David Bowman in the 1968 film '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'' and its 1984 sequel, '' 2010: The Year We Make Contact''. His other film roles include ''David and Lisa' ...

Senta Berger Senta Verhoeven (née Berger; ''Austrian German:'' , ; born 13 May 1941) is an Austrian-German actress. She received many award nominations for her acting in theatre, film and television; her awards include three Bambi Awards, two Romys, an A ...

and

Lilli Palmer Lilli Palmer (; born Lilli Marie Peiser; 24 May 1914 – 27 January 1986) was a German actress and writer. After beginning her career in British films in the 1930s, she would later transition to major Hollywood productions, earning a Golden Glob ...

. It is based on the life of Donatien Alphonse François,

Marquis de Sade Donatien Alphonse François, Marquis de Sade (; 2 June 1740 – 2 December 1814), was a French nobleman, revolutionary politician, philosopher and writer famous for his literary depictions of a libertine sexuality as well as numerous accusati ...

, named Louis Alphonse Donatien in the film. Dullea, in his first film role since the 1968 release of '' 2001: A Space Odyssey'', plays the title character in a film characterized by its

psychedelic Psychedelics are a subclass of hallucinogenic drugs whose primary effect is to trigger non-ordinary states of consciousness (known as psychedelic experiences or "trips").Pollan, Michael (2018). ''How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science o ...

imagery and

go-go Go-go is a subgenre of funk music with an emphasis on specific rhythmic patterns, and live audience call and response. Go-go was originated by African-American musicians in the Washington, D.C. area during the mid-60s to late-70s. Go-go has l ...

sensibilities. As the dying Marquis recalls his life out of sequence, he is terrorized by his uncle and haunted by his own past of debauchery. It was shot at the

Spandau Studios The Spandau Studios or CCC Studios were film and television studios located in Spandau, a suburb of Berlin. They were established in 1949 following the Second World War by the producer Artur Brauner controller of CCC Films, on the site of a form ...

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

and the

Bavaria Studios Bavaria Studios are film production studios located in Munich, the capital of the region of Bavaria in Germany, and a subsidiary of Bavaria Film. History The studios were constructed in the suburb of Geiselgasteig in 1919 shortly after the F ...

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

. The film's sets were designed by the

art director Art director is the title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supervise and unify the vis ...

Hans Jürgen Kiebach Hans Jürgen Kiebach (28 August 1930 – 19 May 1995) was a German production designer, art director and set decorator. He won an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film ''Cabaret''. Selected filmography * ''Three Da ...

Plot

The middle-aged Marquis de Sade arrives at his ancestral estate of La Coste, having escaped incarceration. In the theater at the castle, he meets his uncle, the Abbe, who persuades him to stay to watch an entertainment that has been prepared for him. The play is a parody of the Marquis' parents haggling with M. and Mme. Montreuil over the prospective marriage of their children, leading to a flashback in time to the actual negotiations. The young Louis flees the proposed marriage to Mlle. Renée de Montreuil, but returns and marries her under threat of imprisonment. Louis would prefer Renée's younger sister Anne, finding Renée to be very frightened and cold to his charms. At an orgy with several young prostitutes, Louis begins to get very rough in his play and explains some of his philosophy to the women, leading to the first in a long series of imprisonments. Released into the custody of his mother-in-law Mme. de Montreuil, Louis finds himself a prisoner in his own home. When Anne is sent away to a convent school, Louis begins liaisons first with his mother-in-law's protégé, Mlle. Collette, and then with an actress, La Beauvoisin, for whom he builds a theater at La Coste. The first play performed is for the benefit of the Abbe, who is chagrined to see that the performance is about his own misuse of the young boy Louis. In a flashback, the actual event is played out, the Marquis's later deeds and philosophy thus being given a cold-Freudian origin. Louis proceeds through a series of flashbacks involving his father's death, a mysterious and recurring old man, and the baptism day of one of Louis' own children, culminating in the scandal of Rose Keller, a widow whom he ties up and flagellates with a sword. Mme. de Montreuil is forced to pay Rose for her silence, and to send Louis back into exile at La Coste. Louis continues to pursue Anne, and after an elaborate orgy where he is whipped into unconsciousness, he flees to Italy with the young woman. Returned to prison, Louis is tormented with visions of Mme. de Montreuil disowning Anne and his uncle the Abbe seducing her. Mme. de Montreuil visits him in prison, and tearfully tells him he has ruined her family and that he will remain imprisoned forever. Back on the stage, a mock trial is held where the Marquis is accused of murdering Anne. The mysterious old man is present at the proceedings, and Anne herself appears to accuse Louis of her murder. Louis ruefully remembers Anne's death in Italy from the plague. An older Louis talks with Renée about their misfortunes and regrets, telling her he can find no meaning in life. At another drunken and destructive debauchery, Louis begins to see visions of Renée in the midst of his revel. The old man lies on his death bed in prison, crying out for Renee's forgiveness. It is revealed that the old man is the Marquis himself, following the young Marquis through his memories as he seeks his one moment of reality. Deciding to look one last time, the old man closes his eyes as the scene cuts back the middle-aged Marquis arriving at La Coste.

Cast

as Louis Alphonse Donatien de Sade ** Max Kiebach (''uncredited'') as young Louis *

as Anne de Montreuil *

John Huston John Marcellus Huston ( ; August 5, 1906 – August 28, 1987) was an American film director, screenwriter, actor and visual artist. He wrote the screenplays for most of the 37 feature films he directed, many of which are today considered ...

Abbé ''Abbé'' (from Latin ''abbas'', in turn from Greek , ''abbas'', from Aramaic ''abba'', a title of honour, literally meaning "the father, my father", emphatic state of ''abh'', "father") is the French word for an abbot. It is the title for low ...

de Sade *

as Mme. de Montreuil *

Anna Massey Anna Raymond Massey (11 August 19373 July 2011) was an English actress. She won a BAFTA Award for the role of Edith Hope in the 1986 TV adaptation of Anita Brookner's novel ''Hotel du Lac'', a role that one of her co-stars, Julia McKenzie, h ...

as Renée de Montreuil *

Sonja Ziemann Sonja Alice Selma Toni Ziemann (; 8 February 1926 – 17 February 2020) was a German film and television actress. In the 1950s, she was among Germany's most prominent actresses, awarded the 1950 Bambi for appearing, together with Rudolf Prack, i ...

as La Beauvoisin *

Christiane Krüger Christiane Krüger (born 8 September 1945 in Hamburg, Germany) is a German actress. She is the daughter of actor Hardy Krüger. Selected filmography Cinema * ''Forty Eight Hours to Acapulco'' (1967) * ''The Man with the Glass Eye'' (1969) *''Do ...

as Laura, Louis' mistress *

Uta Levka Uta Levka (born 1942) is a former German film and television actress active during the 1960s and early 1970s. She was discovered by the actress Maria Schell while working at the Bavaria Studios in Munich and appeared in a succession of glamorous ...

as Rose Keller * Barbara Stanek as Colette *

Susanne von Almassy Susanne von Almassy (1916–2009) was an Austrian stage and film actress.Dassanowsky p.131 Selected filmography * '' The Disturbed Wedding Night'' (1950) * '' A Rare Lover'' (1950) * ''Mailman Mueller'' (1953) * '' The Story of Anastasia'' (1956) ...

as Louis' mother *

Friedrich Schoenfelder Friedrich Schoenfelder (17 October 1916 – 14 August 2011) was a German actor and voice artist. Schoenfelder was born in Sorau/Lower Lusatia and died in Berlin. He was 94. He was the German dubbing voice of David Niven and Vincent Price. In t ...

as Louis' father * Herbert Weissbach as M. de Montreuil * Maria Caleita (''uncredited'') as Marie *

Barboura Morris Barboura Morris (born Barboura O'Neill; October 22, 1932 – October 23, 1975) was an American actress and writer. She is most remembered for her roles in American International Pictures productions. Early years Morris was born Barboura ...

(''uncredited'') as Nun

Development

AIP announced they would make the film in 1967 to be based on ''Theatre of Horrors'', an unpublished novel by Louis M. Heyward. Among the original directors discussed for the film were Michael Reeves and

Gordon Hessler Gordon Hessler (12 December 1925 – 19 January 2014) was a German-born British film and television director, screenwriter, and producer. Biography Early Years Born in Berlin, Germany, Katz, Ephraim. ''The Film Encyclopedia'', Harper Perennial ...

Roger Corman Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an American film director, producer, and actor. He has been called "The Pope of Pop Cinema" and is known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film. Many of Corman's films are based on works t ...

worked on the script with

Richard Matheson Richard Burton Matheson (February 20, 1926 – June 23, 2013) was an American author and screenwriter, primarily in the fantasy, horror, and science fiction genres. He is best known as the author of '' I Am Legend'', a 1954 science fictio ...

but was worried about being unable to show the fantasies, and disappointing the audience if they did not. He walked away and AIP hired

instead. Endfield changed the structure of Matheson's script, making it chronological and turning sequences that were fantasies in the script into actual events.Mark McGee, ''Faster and Furiouser: The Revised and Fattened Fable of American International Pictures'', McFarland, 1996 p268-270 During production it was announced that AIP would make ''De Sade'' and also ''Justine'' from the novel by De Sade.

Production

Endfield came down with flu during filming and had to go to hospital. Corman was called in to replace him for the rest of the shoot. John Huston expressed dismay that he had not been asked to direct the film. Corman later claimed that AIP did not pay him what he felt he was owed for his work on the film, contributing to him leaving the company.

Connections to real life

In real life, Sade was meant to be baptized with the name Donatien-Aldonse-Louis; neither of his parents were present at the ceremony, and the name Donatien-Alphonse-Francois was given to him in error. In his life, he used a number of pseudonyms and variations on his true name. During the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...

, he called himself simply "Louis Sade."

Reception

Critical

Vincent Canby Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film and theatre critic who served as the chief film critic for ''The New York Times'' from 1969 until the early 1990s, then its chief theatre critic from 1994 until his death in ...

of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' wrote that the film "is not quite as silly as it looks and sounds, but it comes very close. It successfully reduces one of the most fascinating figures of world literature to the role of not-so-straight man in a series of naughty

tableaux vivants A (; often shortened to ; plural: ), French for "living picture", is a static scene containing one or more actors or models. They are stationary and silent, usually in costume, carefully posed, with props and/or scenery, and may be theatrica ...

." ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' called it "a dramatically compelling, creative and artful film" but warned, "True sado-masochists will be disappointed" because "the orgy scenes are silly, not obscene or erotic. And there is nothing shown or even suggested that is terrible enough to jail a man for life."

Gene Siskel Eugene Kal Siskel (January 26, 1946 – February 20, 1999) was an American film critic and journalist for the '' Chicago Tribune''. Along with colleague Roger Ebert, he hosted a series of movie review programs on television from 1975 until his ...

of the ''

Chicago Tribune The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television ar ...

'' gave the film half of one star out of four and wrote, "Titillation is the name of this celluloid garbage, but even members of the bit and bridle set will be turned off by Keir Dullea ripping open pillows and pouring wine over harlots."

Charles Champlin Charles Davenport Champlin (March 23, 1926 – November 16, 2014) was an American film critic and writer. Life and career Champlin was born in Hammondsport, New York. He attended high school in Camden, New York, working as a columnist for the ...

of the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the ...

'' reported that the film was "not all that great as a skin-flick" and called Huston's performance "curiously energyless" and Dullea "incredibly phlegmatic." Gary Arnold of ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large n ...

'' described the film as "rather dull" and "a dreary theatrical pageant," with Dullea giving a "ludicrous" performance that "resembles nothing so much as

Johnny Carson John William Carson (October 23, 1925 – January 23, 2005) was an American television host, comedian, writer and producer. He is best known as the host of '' The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson'' (1962–1992). Carson received six P ...

doing a take-off on de Sade." Richard Combs of ''

The Monthly Film Bulletin ''The Monthly Film Bulletin'' was a periodical of the British Film Institute published monthly from February 1934 to April 1991, when it merged with ''Sight & Sound''. It reviewed all films on release in the United Kingdom, including those with a ...

'' wrote that ''De Sade'' "both confirms and confounds expectations. An intellectually ambitious script by Richard Matheson mingles with some hideously tinted slow motion orgies; John Huston's magnificently decayed Abbé and Keir Dullea's own variety of mental torment play well against each other but in the end fail to clarify very much about de Sade and his obsessions." ''De Sade'' currently holds an 11% approval rating on

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

based on 9 reviews, with an average rating of 3.9/10.

Box office

Samuel Z. Arkoff of AIP said in 1974 that the film was his company's biggest flop to date. It grossed $1,250,000, more than other AIP films, but lost more money because of the large advertising bill.

Soundtrack

A record album of the soundtrack music by

Billy Strange William Everett Strange (September 29, 1930 – February 22, 2012) was an American singer, songwriter, guitarist, and an actor. He was a session musician with the famed Wrecking Crew, and was inducted into the Musicians Hall of Fame and ...

was released in 1969 by

Capitol Records Capitol Records, LLC (known legally as Capitol Records, Inc. until 2007) is an American record label distributed by Universal Music Group through its Capitol Music Group imprint. It was founded as the first West Coast-based record label of not ...

(ST-5170). It has never been released on CD.

Paperback novelization

novelization A novelization (or novelisation) is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, stage play, comic book or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent of ...

of Richard Matheson's screenplay was written by Edward Fenton under the pseudonym he almost always employed for media tie-in work, Henry Clement. It was released by

Signet Books The New American Library (also known as NAL) is an American publisher based in New York, founded in 1948. Its initial focus was affordable paperback reprints of classics and scholarly works as well as popular and pulp fiction, but it now publish ...

in September 1969. Ironically, under his own by-line, Fenton was best known as an author of books for children.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:De Sade 1969 films 1960s biographical drama films 1960s erotic drama films 1960s historical drama films American biographical drama films American erotic drama films American historical drama films West German films German biographical drama films German erotic drama films German historical films 1960s English-language films English-language German films Films directed by Cy Endfield Films directed by Roger Corman Films directed by Gordon Hessler Films with screenplays by Richard Matheson Films about the Marquis de Sade Films set in France Films set in the 18th century Films shot in Bavaria Films shot in Berlin American independent films American International Pictures films German independent films Films shot at Bavaria Studios Films shot at Spandau Studios 1969 independent films 1969 drama films BDSM in films 1960s American films 1960s German films