Love ‘em or hate ‘em, no one seems to deny that generally speaking, British sex films of the 1970s were bottom of the barrel efforts, with minimalist production values. So 1977 production Cruel Passion certainly stands out of the pack – a period drama that is certainly as handsomely mounted as any Tigon piece, and based on De Sade’s Justine, a book that would not be available in Britain for over a decade (and caused outrage when it was reissued), the film is something of a curio, sitting uncomfortably between genres.

Cruel Passion follows the divergent adventures of teenage sisters Justine (Koo Stark) and Juliette (Lydia Lisle), who find themselves orphaned and alone in the world, having been booted out of a convent full of lesbian nuns. Juliette decides a life of wanton wickedness is the way forward and becomes a prostitute in the house of Madame Laronde (Katherine Kash), while Justine seeks a life of virtue that brings her nothing but misery.

Given British censorship regulations of the time, it’s no surprise that this is ‘de Sade lite’ – though to be fair, the Marquis himself write three different versions of Justine, ranging fro the relatively wholesome to the utterly depraved; it’s fair to say that this is based on the former. So while there are a couple of mild flagellation scenes, the sex doesn’t really scale the heights / plumb the depths (depending on your viewpoint) of Sadean perversity. Certainly, there is less nudity than you might expect and considerably less sex than in other versions of the story – though director Chris Boger is happy to make up for this with some surprisingly graphic violence, more rape than you’d expect to pass the British censors and the odd deviant moment, including necrophilia. Boger shows pretensions to be Ken Russell in a fantasy sequence (imagine what Russell could’ve done with de Sade!), though he is hardly up to the task; however, he generally does a decent enough job here and certainly didn’t deserve to slide back into obscurity afterwards. This would seem to be his only film.

Koo Stark – fresh from Emily and some years away from becoming a tabloid sensation – is unquestionably lovely and manages to be convincingly innocent as Justine, while Lydia Lisle is suitably sexy and frisky as Juliette. Martin Potter, playing Lord Carlisle, had gone from Fellini Satyricon to Goodbye Gemini and Satan’s Slave before this, so it’s unsurprising that we treat his seemingly dashing hero character with suspicion (and rightfully so), while the brothel scenes make room for brief appearances from exploitation faves Ann Michelle and Glory Annan.

This new edition is uncut – having not seen the film for almost two decades, I can’t tell you what is new, though I imagine it’ll be a mix of sexual violence and ass whipping. There are – sadly – no freshly discovered hardcore inserts for this one! Also included are alternative opening titles (with the film renamed Justine or The Marquis de Sade’s Justine), a fairly thorough image gallery and a totally spoilerific trailer.

DAVID FLINT

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