Soledad Miranda is lured into a lifestyle of sex, criminality and murder by stepfather Paul Muller in Jess Franco’s EUGENIE DE SADE.
some interesting background, and touches briefly on the behind-the- scenes problems that prompted him to walk off the movie (which was completed by cinematogra- pher Robert Caramico). Co-stars Robert Englund (discussing his career and how he had to sell his death scene at the jaws of the film’s all-but-immobile crocodile mock-up) and Marilyn Burns are also granted their own interview featurettes (the latter is disap- pointingly short). Seven trailers (including a terrific one from Ja- pan, where the local title was “The Devil’s Swamp”), TV and radio spots, two alternate open- ing credit sequences, a slideshow of numerous behind-the-scenes shots, and a still gallery are also offered. A final section is devoted to Joe Ball, who is alleged to have killed some women in the 1930s and had a collection of pet alli- gators. It is of some interest, but bears only a parenthetic relation to the feature.
8 EUGENIE DE SADE
aka DE SADE 70, EUGENIA, EUGENIE
1970, Blue Underground, DD-2.0/MA/16:9/LB/ST/+, $29.95, 90m 39s, DVD-0 By Tim Lucas
This contemporary adapta- tion of the Marquis de Sade’s novella EUGENIE DE FRANVAL is one of Jess Franco’s most re- markable and transgressive films, arguably the peak of his col- laboration with actress Soledad Miranda (credited here as “Su- san Korday”). The subject of a feature article by this writer in VW #85, the film has been pre- viously issued on DVD by Wild East Entertainment, as an Aus- tralian region-free disc from Force Video, a German R2 PAL DVD on the X-Rated label, and in the UK as an R2 PAL disc from Oracle Entertainment, all of which shared an identical PAL-sourced running time of
86m 45s (90m 27s at 24 fps.). This new release from Blue Un- derground is definitive, being 12s longer than previous re- leases but, more importantly, it is the first to be accurately framed at 1.66:1, anamorphi- cally enhanced, and mastered from a flawless, 1984-dated negative bearing the onscreen title Eugenia.
BU’s presentation reveals the film to be full of enticing tex- tures, like the hanging carpet above the Franval family sofa and the scarlet leather of the thigh-high boots Eugenie wears as part of her disguise in Berlin. The clarity extends to a deeper grasp of the emo- tions that Miranda mines from her character; in her classic closeup during the Berlin book-signing scene, the pic- ture is so sharp as she looks on adoringly at her stepfather (Paul Müller), you can see a light smattering of pale freckles
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84
