gavin6942 A young woman (Marie Liljedahl) is sold into a life of servitude where she becomes the sexual plaything of a rich and depraved brother and sister duo.Well, by Jess Franco standards, this is probably one of his above average films. There are some horror elements (a cult, some torture) and more than enough soft-core pornography (completely unnecessary, but that is just what you come to expect from a Franco film). And Christopher Lee, which is always a treat.The plot is incredibly simple, and if you take out the nude scenes, you are left with maybe thirty minutes of actual story. The movie is still decent, however, thanks to Franco's camera. He does have a few good shots and angles that make this stylish, the film quality is better than much of his work... and there is a coloration theme that deserves credit (red hues), even if I do not fully grasp what he is going for.

Paul Andrews Marquis de Sade's 'Philosophy in the Boudoir' starts as a married man named Mistival (Paul Muller) secretly meets up with his mistress Madame Saint Ange (Maria Rohm) who convinces him to let his teenage daughter Eugenie (Marie Liljedahl) spend the weekend with her on her private island in exchange for some steamy sex, Mistival agrees & both parties seem happy. Madame Agne invites Eugenie to her island & she accepts the invitation, along with her gardener Augustin (Kaplan) & creepy brother Mirvel (Jack Taylor) they are alone on the island. All is not as innocent as it seems though as Madame Agne & Mirvel both belong to an order of people who live out the works of notorious author the Marquis de Sade & Eugenie is set for a starring role in an orgy or depravity & violence...This Spanish & German co-production was directed by Jesus Franco who I consider to be just about the worst filmmaker in cinematic history so maybe this review will be a little bit biased as I really despise the majority of the crap I have sat through that he has been responsible for, retitled to Eugenie... the Story of her Journey into Perversion for it's US release this was indeed based on the novel 'Philosophy in the Boudoir' by the Marquis de Sade. As I said, I hate Franco & his crappy low budget arty films that are as dull as dishwater to sit through & this is no exception despite many claiming it to be his masterpiece. A really boring pace that makes the thing feel like it's on for hours, a lack of proper character's & dialogue doesn't help neither does the limited location which confines the 'action' to about two rooms. The sleaze levels aren't up to scratch either with some full frontal female nudity but little else, the sex is as soft as it comes while the violence is tame. I don't know, I just don't get Franco or his boring films that his fans try to claim are arty surreal masterpieces but to me look like amateurish rubbish with limited stories so Franco has to end up filming random objects just to pad it out a bit. I only saw this yesterday & I can't really say I remember that much about it other than the pedestrian twist ending that in a better director's hands might have been effective but Franco drags it out & ends up boring everyone.The great Christopher Lee has a small role in this & has gone on record as saying he didn't know anything about the soft-core sex scenes & that they were added later without his knowledge. I guess that makes Franco a liar as well as a bad director. The location looks nice enough but what's with the constant whistling wind sound effect? This looks quite colourful & has a few scenes tinted in red for some reason, it's just a shame Franco doesn't know how to shoot a scene. The sex & violence really is tame, there's nothing here that you wouldn't see on late night telly these days.Filmed in Spain the locations look nice enough but Franco never uses them to any great effect. The acting is alright, Christopher Lee obviously stands out but otherwise there aren't that many other people in it.Marquis de Sade's 'Philosophy in the Boudoir' or under whatever title you see it under is crap, I'm sorry but I just don't get Franco or his boring amateurish films. Franco later remade this as Eugenie (Historia de una perversión) (1980) or Wicked Memoirs of Eugenie as it was released in the US.

jaibo The idea of making a narrative film of de Sade's philosophical dialogue Philosophy in the Bedroom is an attractive one, and certainly any adaptation would have to (if it were to have any dramatic life at all) take liberties with the original text. Jess Franco's 1970 adaptation Eugenie… the Story of her Journey into Perversion takes the basic situation and the characters and transforms them into a quite different Sadeian tale. For my money, the original offers more interesting aspects, with the complete seduction of the young heroine into Dolmance's libertine lifestyle and the murderous abjection of the mother at the end.Franco's film has Eugenie, a young middle-class girl invited by swinging Madame de St. Ange and her pervy step-brother (a dilution of Sade's incestuous siblings) and falling prey to an elaborate plan of Madame's to set the girl up as a sacrificial victim as a punishment for taking the step-brother's love. Dolmance becomes a side-figure, appearing to help with Madame's scheme but turning it on her in the end, getting his twisted pleasure out of seeing everyone come to ruin. The most intriguing feature of this is the tacked-on revelation that the action has all been Madame's dream, a fantasy in which she is tricked out of her life – that a woman should have such fantasies is certainly provocative.The anti-Christian, republican and homosexual aspects of Sade's book are jettisoned. What we get in their place is a lot of softcore nudity and brittle upper-class decadence. The film is certainly creepy, although the creepiness is second hand, the idea of dreams which turn out to be real a direct lift from Polanski's Rosemary's Baby. Franco certainly knows how to direct the camera, although it is hard to tell whether the often out-of-focus camera-work was deliberate or not (a case could be made that it is, and behoves the dream that the film's action is). The pace is very slow.This is not a bad film about decadence, Sadism and being driven mad by sex, but there's surely a better narrative to be extrapolated from Sade's extraordinary book.

Rob_Lineberger Eugenie is a film that shocked 1969 audiences, with interracial kissing, woman-to-woman fondling, and brother-sister sex games. It is beautifully filmed, sublimely acted (within its cult pedigree), and has reams of coolness, which makes it a good bet for modern audiences. If you get bored watching Connery drive his Aston Martin to a romantic rendezvous for some witty repartee, Eugenie will likely bore you. If you prefer graphic to simulated, you might find it lame. But if you can buy into the characters and appreciate the care of the filmmaking, Eugenie is a rewarding, disturbing piece of celluloid. In the interview, Franco states "Of all my films, it is the one I hate the least." If you know Franco and his staggering body of work, that's saying something.