Main Cast: Marie Liljedahl, Maria Rohm, Jack Taylor, Nino Korda, Christopher Lee
Release Year: 1969
Country: WG/LI/UK
Run Time: 91 minutes
Plot
One of five adaptations of the Marquis de Sade's Philosophy in the Boudoir directed by cult filmmaker Jesus Franco, this version was perhaps the most subdued, although it was still explicit enough to encounter censorship problems. Maria Rohm stars as Mme. de St. Ange, who reads the Marquis' book and fantasizes about its excessive content. St. Ange has sex with a man named Mistival (Paul Muller) in exchange for permission to take his lovely daughter Eugenie (Marie Liljedahl) to her vacation island. When they arrive, St. Ange and her lover Mirvel (Jack Taylor) seduce Eugenie into joining their bizarre sexual role-playing. A party follows, during which Eugenie is drugged and forced to submit to sadomasochistic games directed by Dolmance (Christopher Lee) and his oddly-dressed followers. When she awakens from her stupor, however, Eugenie finds that the games have turned to murder. Nino Korda and Herbert Fuchs co-star in this provocative exploitation film. Christopher Lee's role as the narrator Dolmance was originally accepted by George Sanders, whose personal crises forced him to withdraw prior to production. Franco returned to the same source material for Eugenie de Sade (1970), Plaisir a Trois (1973), Cocktail Special (1978), and Eugenie, Historia de Una Perversion (1980). ~ Robert Firsching, All Movie Guide
Review
One of Jess Franco's earlier efforts at bringing the work of the Marquis de Sade to the screen (with many more to follow), Die Jungfrau und die Peitsche is rather subdued by Franco's standards, though it has enough nudity, decadence, and pretty people doing awful things to satisfy the vast majority of his fans. Die Jungfrau und die Peitsche (released in the United States as Eugenie: The Story of Her Journey Into Perversion) features plenty of lovely scenery and pleasing sequences of the idle rich enjoying themselves to balance out the lurid and enthusiastic torture sequences, though most of them are mildly creepy rather than bloodcurdling. Christopher Lee's all too brief supporting performance as master sadist Dolmance hits all the right notes (though it's not hard to believe his claims that the nudity was all filmed after his departure, so he wasn't aware of the full level of debauchery he was witnessing), and Maria Rohm and Jack Taylor are a fine pair of creepy, if attractive, libertines. Marie Liljedahl, however, takes top honors as the defiled innocent Eugenie, who walks an appropriate line between schoolgirl charm and ripe sexuality -- scoring impressively on both sides. Die Jungfrau und die Peitsche may be sleaze, but it's sleaze with style, delivering kinky softcore sex and amusingly pretentious philosophizing in amusingly equal measure. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Herbert Fuchs - Hardin; Paul Muller - Father; Maria Luisa Ponte - Mother; Margaret Lee
Credit
Jesús Franco - Director, Bruno Nicolai - Composer (Music Score), Manuel Merino - Cinematographer, Harry Alan Towers - Producer, Jesús Franco - Screenwriter, Peter Welbeck - Screenwriter, Marquis de Sade - Book Author
