Robert J. Maxwell In the opening scene, the beautiful O (Clery) and her lover (Kier) are together in the back seat, being driven down a luminous road to a place Rene has never taken O before. He orders her gently to remove everything she's wearing under her dress. The patchouli-scented voice of the narrator tells us, "Not knowing where they were going, O was afraid to ask questions." I had a couple of questions though. First, where do you find a woman like this? The second was, Why the hell didn't she ask? The wind up is that the beautiful O is taken into a castle where she vows never to look one of the many Masters in the eye or to speak unless told to. She must wear a garment that allows access to her body from just about every imaginable angle. She must subject herself to unspeakable indignities including chaining and whipping and blindfolding and who knows what all. I haven't gotten to the end yet. I don't know if I can handle it. In my heart, I firmly believe that no woman -- no human being -- should be so humiliated and tortured this way except my ex wife.The book was a sensation and the movie, by Just Jaeckin, was an international hit, following hard upon the heels of "Emmanuelle" and preceding its many sequels, such as "Emmanuelle Meets The Seven Dwarfs." But it left me feeling the way I did after watching David Cronenberg's "Crash", about a cabal of cripples and perverts who get off on watching or participating in dreadful automobile accidents. The general sensation was one of having stumbled into someone else's wet dream.Of course all of this is handled with great delicacy and nuance, and with many signals of import. The narration is elliptical. The musical score lacks only Kenny G. What dialog there is only fills us with wonder -- "She's proud; it sets me aflame." The photographer shot most of the film through a veil of Vaseline. The plot defiantly, stands logic on its head. The film strives desperately to convince us that this isn't garbage we're watching -- it's conneries.Well, that gets the negative stuff out of the way. On the plus side, you have never seen such perfect, scintillating, nickel-plated chains. Also, the women aren't shaven clean all over. You can't tell about the men.I can understand why this was such a scandalous film in 1975, with all the unashamed nudity and bondage. It took us on a Cook's Tour of sexual depravity, through caverns measureless to man. Today, with the internet awash in real perversions and and a diversity of real "O"s, the movie seems terribly dated, a historical curiosity. Not insulting, not carrying any evil baggage, but not much more than kitsch. If you want a more grounded and thoughtful movie about S&M, see "Secretary" with David Spader and Maggie Gylenhall.

Nazi_Fighter_David "Story of O" is luxuriant, nicely photographed, and Corinne Clery is quite appealing as a sensual actress… The film is an adaptation of Pauline Reage's novel about a young girl called O and her entry into the art of loving… The special philosophy here is that women, by nature, are inferior to men and should therefore submit to their every emotion and desire. This is the only way for a woman to find ecstasy… O falls in love with a practitioner of this doctrine, and is forced to go through quite a lot before he will take her in… The treatment of eroticism is slow and careful… O is initiated into a house of bondage where the women are playthings for the male clientele… No talking or complaining is permitted... If the rules are broken, they are "punished" in the collar with whips and chains...One can call this film a lot of things, but "subtle" isn't one of them… Still, it's not overly offensive either, despite its extremely one-sided view of femininity... It does have a seductive quality, and we are attracted into its exotic fact or assumption largely because of Corinne Clery's beauty and sensuality

Cristian Histoire d'O (1975) * out **** Directed by Just Jaeckin With Corinne Clery and Udo Kier Jaeckin don't give us any pleasure with this pretentious film about Clery as a woman that do anything for his lover Kier, who ask only for sexual humiliation as prove of her love. Non erotic and kind of repetitive based on the best selling novel of Dominique Aury; its a pity with that decent soundtrack and that beautiful photography. Empty and boring; skip this one.

amora I have read the book quite few times and I decided to see the movie even though I knew it was not going to be anything even near to the book's incredibly erotic atmosphere. I have been disappointed before with movie adaptations of books but this one is by far the worst ever. The acting is bad, the settings are cheap and the sex scenes are awfully boring. They concentrate endless minutes on tits and nsist on some sort of bad taste loud background music. Totally bad. Not even the taxi scene can be saved. Those mini kisses they give each other are just so out of purpose. The ending also goes against the idea of the book, makes the whole thing become meaninsgless, to begin with her name "O". Use the rental money to buy the book instead.