La Bête (film)
| The Beast | |
|---|---|
Official teaser poster
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| Directed by | Walerian Borowczyk |
| Produced by | Anatole Dauman |
| Written by | Walerian Borowczyk |
| Starring |
Sirpa Lane Lisbeth Hummel Marcel Dalio |
| Cinematography | Bernard Daillencourt Marcel Grignon |
| Edited by | Walerian Borowczyk |
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Production
company |
Argos Films
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| Distributed by | Argos Films |
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Release date
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Running time
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98 minutes |
| Country | France |
| Language | French Italian English |
The Beast (French: La Bête) is a 1975 X rated French pornographic erotic fantasy horror film written, edited, and directed by Walerian Borowczyk. Although sometimes compared with Beauty and the Beast, there are no parallels in the plot except that it features the relationship between a beast (monster) and a woman. Although the film was notorious for its explicit sexual content upon its initial release, it is now considered a cult film.
A loose adaptation of the novella Lokis by Prosper Mérimée was originally conceived in 1972 as a film on its own. However, Borowczyk later rendered Lokis as a story (La véritable historie de la bête du Gévaudan) in Immoral Tales (1974), which was envisaged to be a film of six stories. After Immoral Tales was remastered as a film of four stories, the footage became the dream sequence of The Beast.
Businessman Philip Broadhurst dies and leaves his estate to his daughter, Lucy, on the condition that, within six months of his death, she marries Mathurin, the Marquis Pierre de l'Esperance's son, and be married by Cardinal Joseph do Balo, the brother of Pierre's uncle, the crippled Duc Rammaendelo de Balo, who shares their crumbling farmhouse with Pierre's daughter Clarisse, and their servant Ifany.
Mathurin, who manages the family horse-breeding business, is dim-witted and deformed, and has never been baptized. Pierre summons the local priest to the house for the baptism, but Pierre, by promising the priest repairs to his church and a new bell, performs the ritual himself so that the priest doesn't find out the truth about Mathurin.
Lucy and her aunt, Virginia, are driven by their chauffeur towards the farm but their way is blocked by a fallen tree. They find a back route to the house at a back door to the house, where Lucy asks Rammaendelo about rumors. Rammaendelo, who is not in favor of the marriage because he is dependent on Mathurin to look after him, shows her a book that describes the beautiful Romilda's fight with a beast in the local forest 200 years ago. Lucy comes across several drawings depicting bestiality, and becomes sexually excited at the thought of her impending marriage, even though she has never met Mathurin.
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Wikipedia