Lolita (1962)

When director Stanley Kubrick released his film adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's controversial novel about a hopelessly pathetic middle-aged professor's sexual obsession with his 12-year-old stepdaughter, the ads read, "How did they ever make a film of Lolita?" The answer is "they" didn't. As he did with his "adaptations" of Barry Lyndon, A Clockwork Orange, and, especially, The Shining, Kubrick used the source material and, simply put, made another Stanley Kubrick movie--even though Nabokov himself wrote the screenplay. The chilly director nullifies Humbert Humbert's (James Mason's) overwhelming passion and desire, and instead transforms the story, like many of his films, into that of a man trapped and ruined by social codes and by his own obsessions. Kubrick doesn't play this as tragedy, however, but rather as both a black-as-coffee screwball comedy and a meandering, episodic road movie. The early scenes between Humbert, Lolita (a too-old but suitably teasing Lyons) and her loud, garish mother (Shelley Winters in one of her funniest performances) play like a wonderful farce. When Humbert finally fulfills his desires and captures Lolita, the pair hit the road and Kubrick drags in Peter Sellers. As the pedophilic writer Clare Quilty--Humbert's playful doppelgänger and biggest threat--Sellers dons a series of disguises with plans of stealing Lolita away from her captor. It's here more than anywhere that Kubrick comes closest to the novel. He extends Nabokov's idea of the games and puzzles played between reader and writer, Quilty and Humbert, Lolita and Humbert, etc., to those between filmmaker and audience: the road eventually goes nowhere and Humbert's reality is exposed as mad delusion. Perhaps not a Kubrick masterpiece, or the provocative film many wanted, Lolita still remains playfully fascinating and one of Kubrick's strongest, funniest character studies. --Dave McCoy Amazon.com essential video

"Don't Stand So Close to Me"

Although this movie does not really accurately portray Nabokov's story, it is a work of art in itself. Sue Lyon is perfect as the object of sexual obsession. James Mason is perfect as the obsessed. Shelly Winters is perfect as Shelly Winters. Sue was never able to continue on with different roles and we wonder what she would have been like if she had. We are able to start to see some of Stanley Kubrick's genius in this early movie of his career. Although, I don't personally approve of this type of situation, I am highly entertained by it and we have all known characters that resemble the characters in the movie. They are people we snicker about behind hand-covered mouths. The song by the Police, "Don't Stand So Close to Me" serves to conjure up scenes from the movie and provides a romanticized and fitting musical tribute. November 30, 2008

Great Movie

This movie is funny, intense, and pure greatness. Almost as good as the book. A lot less sexual than the book Lolita. Even though this movie is black and white it somehow feels colorful because of Lolita's personality. September 28, 2008

Very disjointed...

It goes without saying that the book is better than the movie, but I just had to say it anyway because it's so true. There are a ton of great reviews of the movie here on Amazon so I'll be brief.

3 Stars were given becuase of the very fine acting, especially Shelly Winters. Winters portrays almost exactly the Charlotte Haze that I had envisioned in my mind when reading the book. Sue Lyon does a fine job as Dolores even though she looks nothing at all like how I pictured Lolita in my mind, she's too pretty.

My main gripe about the movie is the incessant fading to black after every scene and the constant appearances of Quilty!
The most annoying scene in the entire movie is when Quilty comes out to talk to Humbert at the hotel.
In the movie Peter Sellers goes on a long strange ramble that makes very little sense and was a little annoying to me.
However, this scene in the book, when the understandably paranoid Humbert is biding his time waiting for his drugged nymphet to finally go unconscious is surprised to find another guest on the patio with him, is one of my very favorite scenes in the book. The artful way that Nabokov has our "poor Humbert" mis-hear the casual conversation of his fellow guest was truly a master work of literature, the movie totally botched this scene!
OK movie of a great book... August 4, 2008

Does the novel justice

I think Nabokov's Lolita is one of the greatest novels of all time, and Kubrick's film version does the book ample justice. James Mason is sublime as Humbert Humbert - an intellectual old world European emigre who finds himself in 1950s America on a professorship. His patrician aloofness rubs against the provincial Charlotte Hayes - a homely woman struggling with a recalcitrant daughter Lolita. The poor woman has no idea the depths of the obsession within Humbert's mind - all swirling high culture and depraved Eros. She gives him space in her house to write, and falls in love with him. Humbert is after something much darker - her brattish, nymphette daughter Lolita, but marries Mrs Hayes in order to maintain contact with the family.

The Nabokov style is encapsulated in the film: 'And when called upon to enjoy my promotion from lodger to lover, did I experience only bitterness and distaste? No. Mr. Humbert confesses to a certain titillation of his vanity, to some faint tenderness, even to a pattern of remorse, daintily running along the steel of his conspiratorial dagger.'

The movie, necessarily can't be as dark as the novel given the subject matter. Lolita is more high school prom queen than true pre-teen. Clare Quilty features as a chameleon rival, played with comic mastery by Peter Sellars. It is a different type of comedy than the novel - more laconic and at times slapstic (the cot in the bedroom scene) than truly dark chocolate subversive. But a Kubrick triumph in any case. And the notoriously hard to please Nabokov thought so too. July 28, 2008

1961 Film Noir..

Brilliant 2 1/2 hours of character portrayal by Mason, Sellers, Winters and the lovely Lolita underscoring the emotional dark side 1960's style.
Kubrick's depiction of Freudian sexuality, murder,possesiveness,insecurity, a world without purpose but the maximization of one's pleasure within one's own private world shot and executed so carefully as to all detail makes this a remarkable tour De force.
This film adaption whether true to the original makes no difference since this movie is cast in the contemporary 1960's at a cusp of sociological change.
The drama is excellent and what comes to mind is Joan Crawford's Possessed and Edward G. Robinson's Scarlet Street but shot in the early 1960's with all themes intact.
The movies captures the tensions between the old and new extremely well, June 29, 2008

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