Lady Chatterley's Lover (1982)

I saw this film when I was in my twenties. Sylvia Kristal of the famed Emmanuel series of erotic films seemed to play this film straighter than her previous films. If she is making a film you can sure bet it has a little nudity and a little sex. I believe that the producers of the film chose her because that was what they needed and they knew she would deliver. And deliver she did. I read this book years later and just watched the DVD I had bought for a couple of dollars. It follows an abbreviated plotline from the book but barely captures the characters in their full breadth. The actors that were chosen were almost perfect for their characters and I wish there was a little more time for development. The location was beautiful as well as the twenties costumes. The film should be attacked as a literary work of art, not so much sex although sex was an important part of it. I would deem this version of Lady Chatterley's Lover as women's erotica. That's how it served me. 1981 and the era of the seventies seemed to produce lots of soft core frontal nudity and simulated sex and in viewing it again, I had to adjust my thinking to that era. The British miniseries made for Masterpiece Theater seemed to capture the spirit a bit more. I see there are other versions but the best way to view this story is to read the uncensored version.

The plot of D.H. Lawrence's famous novel of passion and mores is lifted mostly intact, but everything has a dumbed-down and trashed-up quality that makes the resulting adaptation anything but faithful. Sylvia Kristel once again proves inadequate to the task of carrying a movie, and what's more looks much older than her real age (28), as well as that of the even younger character Lady Chatterley. Instead of smoldering with forbidden passion, she seems listless and uninterested in the affair that is central to the story's power. Nicholas Clay also seems unconvincing as the virile but coarse Mellors. Why he would be the object of romantic fascination for any woman of class seems a mystery not worth investigating. The pastoral look of the film is pretty nice, plus it also features good period detail and costumes, but the script is extremely weak and the dramatics - especially among the supporting performances - are just not sharp enough to properly drive a story of class betrayal and social scandal. Approach with extreme caution.

I read one of D. H. Lawrence's novel in university as part of an English course I was taking, and I found it utterly boring and not making me want to seek out his other works. The only reason why I rented this Lawrence adaptation was that it was produced by famed schlockmeisters Menahem Golan and Yorman Globus, who made some really entertaining trashy movies. This was one of the few times they tried for "respectability", though they chose a story that could also be mined for exploitation material.But the movie fails both at its serious attempts and with its attempts at exploitation. The script has too many faults that distance the audience. The setup of the situation at the beginning of the movie goes so fast that there's no time to set up characters and make us see what they are feeling. This flaw with the characters continues as the movie goes on, and I was not sure why many times characters did what they did. Oddly, there are also a number of scenes that serve no purpose - if they had eliminated those scenes, and used the extra few minutes to pump up the characters, I'm pretty sure the movie would be a lot better.As for the erotic element of the movie, it's not there. Even for 1981, the idea of taking a lover must have seem old hat to audiences. The nudity and sex in the movie is not the least bit erotic despite full frontal nudity and explicit sex scenes. Some of this might be blamed on the below average production values - the movie has a murky look throughout, and there's not much effort to beef up the backgrounds with extras or anything that might have taken time and expense to make.Even if you are a Golan/Globus fanatic like I am, odds are you'll find this as dreary as I did.

Though D.H. Lawrence's scandal-fueling 1928 novel, which was not legally available in its country of origin until 1960, has been adapted for the screen on many occasions since respectable stick in the mud Marc Allégret made a first attempt as long ago as 1955 with less fire than ice Danielle Darrieux, it wasn't until the equally non-British Pascale Ferran shot a highly literate version with the magnificent Marina Hands critics consensually agreed the book had been done cinematic justice. While a considerable commercial success when theatrically released in the early '80s, Just Jaeckin's much-maligned rendition has rarely been deemed worthy of comment since. Large part of the problem for high-minded reviewers remains the fact that so many involved on both sides of the camera are just so…disreputable ! Rather fitting for a film based on literary material so long slandered as pornographic and since that took three decades to rehabilitate, perhaps the movie might expect a similar fate by now ? Produced by the Cannon Group, effectively Israeli-born schlock-meisters Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, and directed by the guy who drew huge crowds yet public disdain with such up-market porn as EMMANUELLE and HISTOIRE D'O, it had some major hurdles to overcome if it wanted to become a critic's darling. While the Go-Go Twins, a nickname coined by Michael Winner, probably couldn't care less about such fate, this was clearly more of a concern for Just Jaeckin, craving respect in the wake of top-grossing titillation. Alas, it was not meant to be. Casting Dutch actress Sylvia Kristel, who – like Jaeckin – could not escape the curse of EMMANUELLE, in the lead role didn't help. Though dubbed in plummy British dulcet tones, she's actually quite good playing constricted Constance Chatterley, deeply in love with war-paralyzed husband Clifford (a rather unctuous Shane Briant, who had made an impact in Hammer's DEMONS OF THE MIND and CAPTAIN KRONOS, VAMPIRE HUNTER) but physically yearning for the satisfaction only hunky grounds keeper Oliver Mellors (the late lamented Nicholas Clay) can supply.Movie's actually a lot closer to the book, a "hot property" if ever there was, than those who have never read it assume. An intimately detailed account of romance as product of overwhelming sexual attraction, it didn't exactly need "juicing up" to qualify as source for an overtly erotic film. Initially intended to be made by the outrageous Ken Russell (who wound up doing a disappointingly bland TV version with Joely Richardson and Sean Bean a decade later) with Sarah Miles and Oliver Reed slated to portray the single-minded protagonists, the eventual outcome was quickly written up as a sell-out to crass commercialism by the kind of ivory tower print journalists who are now receiving their just desserts courtesy of the Internet. They did not pay attention to the faithful screenplay provided by Jaeckin, regular Hammer scribe Christopher Wicking and American author Marc Behm, who wrote "The Eye of the Beholder", filmed by Claude Miller (as MORTELLE RANDONNEE) and Stephan Elliott under the original title. They casually overlooked Shirley Russell's sumptuous costumes, dating back to when it was still her husband's project no doubt, and the splendid sets by a then fledgling designer named Anton Furst, who had the last laugh garnering well-deserved kudos for his outstanding work on Neil Jordan's COMPANY OF WOLVES and Tim Burton's BATMAN. Pressed for praise, they were willing to concede that the efforts of cinematographer Robert Fraisse (Oscar-nominated for Jean-Jacques Annaud's THE LOVER) and composer Stanley Myers worthy of minor consideration, though both were thought of as "slumming" it.Okay, this is where I discard all pretense of professionalism and possibly, where part of my respected readership's concerned, take leave of my senses. Having made a convincing case for the defense, I feel, I must admit that I profoundly love this movie for reasons that are entirely personal. Picture if you will, an anxious 14-year old boy struggling with his sexual identity – I have since come out to myself and the world, thank you – being taken by his beloved and now sadly departed mother to see this film at the sort of humongous picture palace pre-dating the multiplex culture we know today. The extremely physical romance unspooling before my gazing eyes filled me with joy and longing as few films have managed since. Stuck in a loveless marriage, for which I don't blame my late father as they proved a poor match from the start by all accounts, my mom relished the vicarious thrill the flicks provided her with. Needless to say, we both adored this one, so much in fact, and I can't believe I'm making this public but you will soon find out I have no shame, that we would call each other "Connie" and "Ollie" ever since until her untimely passing in February 2003.I developed a major crush on Nicholas Clay. He had caused a stirring in my loins playing Lancelot in John Boorman's magnificently overblown Excalibur but now the lid was off entirely. As a starry-eyed gay teen, I vowed to keep myself chaste until we could be together. Oh, my resolve weakened – or was weakened for me – within a couple of weeks or so and I grew into the slut beloved by many to this very day ! So, this movie's all about coming to terms with my growing attraction to members (ha !) of the same sex. It's also about my mother, invariably the most important woman in most gay men's lives. Six and a half years since her death and still not a day goes by that she's not in my thoughts. I love and miss her very much and watching this film – praise the Lord for DVD – makes me feel that little bit closer to her whenever I need to, just like this particularly odd review is my perhaps wrong-headed attempt at a tribute. Go softly into the night, my Queen, and God bless