De Sade's Juliette (1975 Jess Franco Film)

Not to be confused with the 1970 film Juliette which is also lost.

De Sade's Juliette is a 1975 film directed by Jess Franco, starring Lina Romay and Alain Petit. The story seemed to be about the sadomasochistic relationship between a young woman and a hippie poet. There are some dark moments such as when a woman fellates a hanged man and the ending which involves the heartbroken woman shooting herself in the vagina. The film in its original form was only released once in French theaters and one contemporary review called it "a total botch-up of a heartbreaking emptiness, that goes almost as far as self-sabotage".

According to Alain Petit, distributors found some of the content to be too dark for the censors and cut out the aforementioned suicide scene as well as a murder scene. While an English dub was prepared, the film was never given an English release. Instead, it found its way into the hands of Italian distributors who commissioned director Joe D'Amato to heavily re-edit De Sade's Juliette and turn it into a completely different film called Justine. Justine is an odd 1979 cut that only utilizes half of the original footage while the other half is comprised of footage taken from Midnight Party and Shining Sex resulting in a heavily confused narrative. The soundtrack is also recycled from Nico Fidenco's score for the Black Emanuelle films. The Italian cut was eventually released on VHS and is currently the only way to view footage from De Sade's Juliette.

The Italian company Variety Films currently holds the rights for both De Sade's Juliette and and its re-edit Justine.