Vice and Virtue (1963) (2025)

Popular reviews

• Review by Disgustipated ★★★★ 3

  I actually watched this film back in mid-September but there a couple of scenes that have stuck with me through that whole time. They were that horrifying.

  The scene where we watch a Gestapo asshole smirk to himself with self-satisfaction. Offscreen the General he has just poisoned slowly dies as he plays the piano and the tune trails off to a discordant finale.

  Another scene where we watch a bunch of Nazi assholes performing mundane tasks like making tea, reading the newspaper and picking their nose in boredom, while offscreen we hear the screams of a young man being tortured.

  Plenty of other fucked up stuff in this film. The Nazis really sucked.

• Review by matt lynch ★★★½

  De Sade translated into gorgeous, classically gaze-y black-and-white scope frames that dwarf the women and turn the men into sweaty, plotting spectators, making female sexual purity actually a secret desire for submission. It exists only to be diluted (whatever that means), and Vadim locates in that an operatic sacrifice that he further equates with the push-pull between pragmatic collaboration and honorable resistance. A beautiful, Wagnerian sadomasochistic impulse, the princess in a ring of fire waiting to be rescued from desire and conquered. Fucked up.

• Review by Stephen M ★★★

  My first experience of controversial French director Roger Vadim, "Vice and Virtue" was a misfire. A strange and sometimes interesting misfire, but a misfire nonetheless. Based on stories by the Marquise de Sade, it's set in Nazi-occupied Paris during WW2. The Nazis' sadism - sexual and otherwise - is on full display as it centers around two sisters - Juliette (symbolizing Vice) and Justine (symbolizing Virtue) and their entanglements with Nazi SS officers.

  To be fair, there are some fascinating and creative touches - a debauched party set in a gymnasium complete with a full-sized indoor swimming pool, disturbing closeups of the officers' faces as they witness and inflict torture, some baroque sets, and some damn good acting by Annie…

• Review by Michael Stuhlman ★★★

  This film was so texturally pleasing that I feel like I could touch it with my eyes.

  Otherwise I didn't find the story particularly engaging, but thanks to killer visuals I was never bored.

• Review by forkboy ★★★★★

  Nothing is as effective as hinting at horror and leaving the rest to the viewer's imagination; the breathtaking beauty of the young Catherine Deneuve goes hand in hand with the beguiling black and white photography of this fascinating and repulsive panopticon.

• Review by Bronze_Tiger ★★★

  “Vice and Virtue” retells the Marquis de Sade story “Justine and Juliette.” Set in 1944, in German-occupied France, Annie Giradot (Julliette) sleeps with Nazis in order to maintain a lavish and exalted lifestyle. Her sister Catherine Deneuve (Justine) remains virtuous, while her husband fights with the French Resistance. The Nazis transport Deneuve to a rural castle—essentially a whore house for the SS. The young women stroll the grounds wearing identical white gowns with studded brown leather belts. One of the girls is none other than the beautiful Luciana Paluzzi, who starred in many international productions in the 60s and 70s. To see her together with Deneuve is delightful. And Deneuve has never looked better—not even in “Belle de Jour.” The costumes, sets, and cinematography are top notch. The film is in good hands, helmed by Roger Vadim, who directed movies such as “And God Created Woman” and “Barbarella.”

• Review by sara 🐐 ★★★

  not enough catherine deneuve 😡

  
  Also.. how is this a comedy????????????????

• Review by Scott Kelly ★★★

  With the Marquis de Sade (Justine/Juliette) as the jumping off point I suppose this film deserves some credit as a pioneer to all the (largely Italian) films that would up the ante of the Nazis as depraved libertines cycle of films (for the art house crowd: The Damned, The Night Porter, Seven Beauties and, especially, Salo; or the trench-coat set: Salon Kitty and the Ilsa series). While it’s all super slick and artful looking, with Roger Vadim one is always a little sceptical of any high brow intentions - a base perviness always hovers without the fun rewards of exploitation films. The themes are overly underlined and the romantic sheen undermines any potential anti-moral that confirms vice is amply rewarded.…

• Review by Eva ½ 1

  vadim sucks

• Review by Tim H. ★★★★

  Vadim's masterpiece? Aside from some stock footage, the black and white scope cinematography (along with the editing, lighting, and music) in this film is so impressive it almost makes you overlook any other flaws that it might have. Imagine a Nazi exploitation picture shot with the same level of quality and opulence as something like Last Year at Marienbad and that is basically what you get here. I might never have seen a more exquisite combination of high and low culture in all my days - vice and virtue, indeed. The bombastic battle sequence at the end is also one to remember.

• Review by washington ★★½

  I think de Sade's title is supposed to be a sex reference based on the gender of the articles, but I also don't think Vadim was smart enough to catch that possibility. This is easily the best thing I've seen from him which is to say it has a merit. The film probably works a lot better in still frames as the base mis-en-scene is very pleasing, but the overall aesthetic is as leaden as ever with some sense of Vadim's incompetence still afoot. Though I should emphasize again this is the least incompetent thing I've seen from Vadim. He's also really bad at melodrama though that is seemingly the only mode of storytelling he knew. For whatever reason he…

• Review by dankwit 1

  was watching a little bit of inglourious basterds on IFC and was struck (possibly bc I was thinking of The Last Metro) by Mélanie Laurent's resemblance to Catherine Deneuve. knowing that this picture was leaving criterion, I threw it on to test my hypothesis (the verdict: close enough).

  halfway thru, IB ended and on came the wolf of wall street. and if there's a better pair of movies to sum up this "de Sade in Nazi occupied France" Vadim film, it's not going to be shown on cable

  this has been my "review," thank you for reading