The movie "Lolita" is simply a fair film; and only if you understand the book. In 1958 Hollywood was not permitted to investigate some of the themes Nabokov employed in the book. Nabokov, agreed to write the screen play because naively he fancied that would have a chance of influencing the screenplay. The final film and screenplay use almost none of Nabokov's work, and early in the process, it became clear that the screenplay would be written by Hollywood hacks and the movie would have little to do with the book.

Sue Lyons looks nothing like the typical "nymphet" which Humbert/Nabokov carefully outlines in the beginning of the book. Sue Lyons was a good actress, but was necessarily miscast for the movie ( e.g.,Lolita, in the book, was 12 years old). Only in her final scene where she is pregnant and married does she look and play the part well.

Also, there are now several different cuts of this movie. This is a lesser cut and is missing several great scenes with Peter Sellers. Sellers Plays Claire Quilty and steals the movie.

If you want to understand the book "Lolita"; buy the annotated version and the book "The Keys to Lolita". Plan to read the book 3 or 4 times, taking the time to cross reference the literary illusions and read the passages slowly. The book has NO sex scenes and it and is intended as a literary epic. I have a degree in English Literature, yet it took me about 3-4 close readings of the book to even begin to understand "Lolita". I have spent over 20 years reading this book and finding new things about the book each time.

It's not only that 1958 Hollywood could no make a film of what most people THOUGHT "Lolita" was about, but that a literary masterpiece such as "Lolita" simply cannot be adapted to the screen. "Lolita" is pure literature and MUST be read to obtain it's full force of writing genius. I have no idea why Kubrick thought he could make a film version of such a book. I can only conclude that Mr. Kubrick did not understand Nabokov or his wondrous book. If you care anything about literature read the book as you would read James Joyce and expect no less.

I wonder if Kubrick ever finally read the book and began to understand it's literary humour, puns, playfulness, dark wit, singular narrative unique to all of English literature?

PS: The score by Nelson Riddle is the most under-rated part of the movie and worth owning on CD. But the book it the ultimate item to buy. I have read this book at least 10 times and feel like there is more to discover!

As usual, I received my purchase way ahead of the time I was supposed to get it. It was in excellent condition and that is why I shop Amazon.com all the time.

"Lolita" is a true classic of film history, created by arguably the greatest filmmaker of all time. The quality of the movie and the quality of the cast are evident in every frame of the film. A top-notch cast includes James Mason, Shelley Winters, and Peter Sellers, and they make the movie unforgettable. Not to mention, the title character, Sue Lyon, who makes you love to hate her!
The only regret is that Kubrick was so influenced by the controversy surrounding the production of the film that much, much, MUCH of the original novel was dumbed down. Including the age of Lolita (much younger in the book) and the general relationship between Humbert and Lolita is left very much ambiguous, even though it's strongly implied.
But these modifications do not touch the quality of the film and the end result, which leaves you wanting more.

Lolita (Stanley Kubrick, 1962)

[note: I swear I originally reviewed Lolita back in 1989, and did so again early in the last decade. However, I cannot find a trace of either review anywhere. And thus I review it for a third time. Apologies if all this sounds familiar. That's because it probably is.

I was never a Kubrick fan in my younger days. Granted, when you're a teenager, your critical skills are somewhat impaired, but I always thought Full Metal Jacket, after its wonderful first forty-five minutes, wandered off into utter pointlessness, Dr. Strangelove was weirdly absent of humor for such a revered movie, and 2001 was... well, then. In any case, all that lasted until the first time I saw Lolita back in the late eighties (on a double bill with FMJ). There's a scene about halfway through the film where Humbert (James Mason) and Quilty (Peter Sellers) meet for the first time in a bar. Looking back on it from a post-1995 standpoint, I'm surprised it didn't generate all the excitement of Pacino and DeNiro meeting for the first time in Heat. As for the actual execution, Kubrick's scene blows Mann's right out of the water; Mason, who otherwise overacts through most of the film, is the picture of a guilty conscience, while Sellers is an incredible combination of slapstick and menace. Lolita quickly became my favorite Kubrick film, and remained such for almost twenty years (it was recently surpassed by Paths of Glory). That said, as an adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's novel, it must be considered an utter failure; part of the mass of idiosyncrasy that was Stanley Kubrick is that his ability to faithfully adapt pretty much anything was subsumed in his consciousness by his desire to make the source material fit into his views both of what filmmaking should be and what social statement he was attempting to make with the movie. (And as a result, according to IMDB, while Nabokov liked the finished film, he wondered why he'd spent the time adapting his novel, since so little of his screenplay was actually used.) There are movies, however, that demand to be looked at as separate works than those that inspired them. Consider the case of Tobe Hooper's adaptations of Robert Bloch's Psycho (which became The Texas Chain Saw Massacre) and Stephen King's 'Salem's Lot. As adaptations, they just plain suck, but as free-standing films, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre has become one of the most respected horror movies of all time, and 'Salem's Lot is a monstrously entertaining exercise in cheese. Such it is with Lolita, a bad adaptation but an excellent film.

For those who don't know the plot (how could you not? but I digress), European professor Humbert Humbert, recently divorced, heads off to America to take a teaching position at a small liberal arts college in Ohio. Beforehand, he spends the summer in a resort town in New Hampshire. While looking for lodgings, he meets the irrepressible Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters) and her stepdaughter Lolita (Sue Lyon). Humbert instantly falls for the nymphet and takes a room at the Haze's place; soon, he will go as far as marrying the mother in order to stay close to the daughter. The film really begins, however, when Charlotte finds out about Humbert's obsession with Lolita and confronts him, never realizing that the other guy she pursued after her husband's death, Claire Quilty (Sellers), is also obsessed with her darling daughter...

While elements of black humor had pervaded Kubrick's films before (The Killing is a masterpiece of subtle black comedy, as many of the best noir films are), Lolita was his first attempt at making an out-and-out comedy, and in that regard, it works very well. That's another of the big differences between novel and movie; Nabokov was much more subtle in his humor than Kubrick, who widened and whitened it a great deal here (viz. the cot scene, which could have come out of a Laurel and Hardy flick, or Sellers' penchant for silly accents). Humbert Humbert comes off far less a slave to his obsessions than he does a guy who's feeling put upon by society's silly rules, but once again, if you don't look at it as an adaptation, that's not necessarily a bad thing (and those who would jump to castigate Kubrick for considering the rules Humbert's chafing at "silly" might do well to remember Kubrick addressed the same basic theme in Paths of Glory, with much the same outcome; it brings Kubrick's satire of Humbert's outlook into much sharper focus). Mason does tend to overact his part; no one with eyes and ears could fail to notice Humbert's guilty conscience, though pretty much everyone else in the movie, save one nosy neighbor (and Quilty, in the spirit of like-knows-like), does exactly that. Sellers, too, is guilty of a great deal of overacting here as well, but (a) everyone expected that anyway, and (b) in his case, it was all for comic relief.

The real surprise here is Sue Lyon, at the beginning of a very brief film career (in which she often played this sort of temptress, viz. Night of the Iguana or Autopsy, romancing Richard Burton and Fernando Rey respectively). During the first half of the film, Lolita herself is an almost unseen character save that first glimpse Humbert gets of her; it's only in the second half of the film that Lolita becomes a character in her own right, and that was exactly the right choice of Kubrick to make in this situation. Humbert seems almost as shocked as the audience that Lolita isn't a cardboard cutout (or, maybe more to the point, a blow-up doll), and it's that transformation that gives much of the second half of the movie the power it has. I grant you, once she does become a three-dimensional character, Lolita heads straight into typical-teenager territory (at least, typical teenager territory for the early sixties), but still.

There will be people who just can't get past the subject matter, despite the fact that Kubrick really soft-pedals it (Lolita's age is raised three years and only the barest hints are dropped about intimate activity); if you are one of those people, then you should avoid this. For everyone else it's a must-see. ****

An earlier Kubrick work. Certainly not his best. Very similar to Eyes Wide Shut, but much better, thematically and visually. A must have for any fan of Kubrick.