A Beastly Look at the Marquis de Sade in UCLA Series

Tonight at 8, the UCLA Film Archives will premiere “Marquis,” by writer-director Henri Xhonneux and co-writer-designer Roland Topor (“Fantastic Planet”). This recent French film is all but indescribable--at least in a family newspaper. Let’s try anyway.

Imagine a collaboration between Pier Palo Pasolini and the late Czech puppeteer Jiri Trnka, who have decided to adapt, unbowdlerized, the works of the Marquis de Sade, as interpreted by anthropomorphic animal-puppets, their faces subtly humanized but their “bestial” natures now transparent. In this conceit, “The Marquis” is a spaniel, his jailer a rat, Justine a cow, the prison governor a rooster and the hypocritical Jesuit priest a dromedary. The film is thoroughly lewd, bawdy, shocking, but often weirdly charming.

And, offensive or “sadistic” as some will find “Marquis,” it’s not really pornographic, since the effect of the puppet-masks, high-style delivery and fairy-tale settings renders the idea of sexual license as absurd as possible. (One of the characters is the Marquis’ organ, with which he has jocular and philosophic conversations.) Obviously, Xhonneux/Topor’s “Marquis” is both exclusively for adults--and unique.

Information: (213) 206-FILM.

This weekend, LACMA’s Vincente Minnelli retrospective catches the director at a bad moment--the disastrously cut 1962 inside-Hollywood movie, “Two Weeks in Another Town,” and a career high point: 1958-59, the years of the multiple-Oscar-winning “Gigi” and “The Reluctant Debutante” (Friday) and “Some Came Running” (Saturday).

In all these films, especially “Gigi”--with Leslie Caron as the most fetching of Colette’s gamins and Maurice Chevalier as the charmingly avuncular boulevardier who watches her consort’s progress--Minnelli’s craft is mellow and assured, even when materials or cast (Sandra Dee as the debutante) don’t exactly suit him.

“Some Came Running,” which began as an adaptation of James Jones’ writer-come-home novel and turned into the first and best of the “Rat Pack” movies, is a particular tour de force. Frank Sinatra makes an alarmingly plausible writer and his lowlife buddies top him. As gambler Bama, who never removes his hat, Dean Martin has rarely been better. And, as Ginny, a threadbare floozy with a skirt too tight and a smile too quick, Shirley MacLaine gives one of the most moving and brilliant performances of her whole career.