Venus in Furs (1967): Sexploitation Spin on Sacher-Masoch

Venus in Furs (1967) is a sexploitation film directed by Joe Marzano and starring Barbara Ellen. Marzano and Ellen wrote the script, suggested by Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s novel of the same name—the classic of male masochism, fur fetish, and female dominance. It is a short entry in the long chain of screen borrowings from that book: not a prestige adaptation, but a period exploitation spin that put the infamous title on grindhouse and later specialty DVD shelves.

Release and Availability

In the United States the film has been issued on DVD by Something Weird Video, the label that preserves and recirculates mid-century sexploitation and oddball erotica for collectors. That home-video path is how many kink-curious viewers still encounter this particular Venus in Furs—as a catalogued curiosity rather than a festival-circuit art film.