Lady Chatterley's Liebhaber

Pretty typical Golan & Globus production with better than average art direction and cinematography. The estate is beautiful--as is Sylvia Kristel--but the adaptation is flat and whole thing feels flabby.

A bit of sex goes with the story, of course, and it's done well enough; but it's nothing like Kristel's soft core films. The acting is competent thruout, and the filmmakers take pains to maintain the essence of the English class struggle. But some of the jealousy and social indignation feels contrived.

I loved Lord Chatterly's gas-powered wheelchair for zipping around the grounds, altho why he didn't install an elevator in the mansion is a mystery.

Sir Clifford Chatterley and his wife Constance Chatterley (Sylvia Kristel) belong to the upper class of English society. War breaks out between England and Germany in WWI. Clifford is maimed in the trenches. He is a cripple in many ways. He permits Constance to take on a lover. She is taken with gamekeeper Oliver Mellors who works on the estate. As she starts an affair with him, Clifford becomes cruel.

This is trying to be a highbrow soft porn adaptation of the D. H. Lawrence novel. Sylvia Kristel is probably the obvious choice since becoming infamous for her Emmanuelle movies. She is not shy about showing her body but she is limited in her acting range. There isn't much in the story. Nothing is obviously bad. This could be an interesting psychological drama but this does not have the gravitas. There is no tension. It's rather flat.

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.

Lady Chatterley's Lover is understandably controversial but it is also a compelling read, though not a personal favourite. This film is not exactly terrible as there are some good things to see on display but the maligning it has gotten is as understandable as the book being controversial. The photography mostly has a nostalgic quality to it while the costumes and sets are exquisite in colour and detail. The score is seductive and hauntingly beautiful, Sylvia Kristel is a real beauty, the second half is an improvement over the first half with some appropriately steamy moments and Nicholas Clay as well as being astonishingly handsome and sexy is quite good as Oliver. Unfortunately Kristel's acting talents do not translate here, throughout she is very wooden and bland, while on the other side of the scale Shane Briant's hammy over-acting grates after a while. The supporting cast, and there are some talented actors here, are unable to do much with characters that are written to caricatures(blander than that in some cases). Some of the sexy moments are sensual but too many and most of them verge on lowbrow and too much like a porn film, the book is an explicit one but it's not that trashed up. The script is very underwritten and banal, it is difficult to take seriously anything that the actors say, while the storytelling is really dull with non-existent passion in the first half, the main reason being that while the basic story of the book is intact, the prose, characterisations and passion(mostly) are barely scarce. Some of the editing looks hastily-put together too. All in all, Lady Chatterley's Lover looks good but it is dull and underwritten, and takes the sexual nature of the book to extremes, well at least to me it did. 4/10 Bethany Cox

I came across this movie on DVD recently at a boot sale and bought it for $1.00.

I first saw it on theatrical release but watched it again the other night.

The story is well known and I won't comment on the movie other than to say it was clearly an attempt at legitimate, low key porn.

But it did take me back to the original cinema viewing, which I saw with my new wife, who I think was particularly embarrassed. Sitting in front of us were an English couple and he was voluble right through the movie, as if it was a comedy.

As we were leaving the theatre he turned to me and said 'I don't know about you but I am going to plant my back lawn out in bluebells'. Broke me up, and I can't think of D.H. Lawrence, without thinking of bluebells.

I am surprised that no one has had a serious go at remaking LCL. It might be that DHL is to difficult for todays literally changed audiences.