Lady Chatterley's Lover

Lady Chatterley's Lover

Lady Chatterley's Lover

Better than expected version of the old smutty D.H. Lawrence story of a posh bit having an affair with a rough games-keeper. To be honest, I'd probably say the BBC version with Sean Bean around 1995 was a lot more sleazier. Most of the sex here is done in a jokey style, if that makes sense. Kristel is dubbed I bet you. I've not looked at IMDb.com yet, but I'm betting she was. Nicholas Clay is hilarious in his role as Mellors. It's like a * star version of Gazza when he talks. You wouldn't think that accent comes from his mouth. Bloody excellent soundtrack too. Current searching to see if it available anywhere. Mildly recommended.

I admit D.H. Lawrence was a highly controversial figure of his time and it was inevitable his stories would ultimately be made into flicks after the strict censorship laws of the day wore off. I would've thought that a strong erotic story of this caliber would be better suited for a more respectable film company than "Golan & Globus". It happened though and the results are good, but not spectacular or riveting in any way. There's the exception though of Lady Chatterley spying on Mellors standing naked in front of his brick gamekeeper's house and washing himself. That was major erotic potency right there. There was also a sensuous and highly pleasing chemistry between the two, but then Shane Briant's character, a British aristocrat, Sir Clifford Chatterley, gets in the way of the scheme of things. He got downright annoying at times as well as Ivy Bolton, Clifford's caregiver, who suspected the cheating of Lady Chatterley right from the beginning. The romance blossoms full throttle between Lady Chatterley and the gamekeeper. There's a major stab here at the discrimination of "class" and how Sir Chatterley would allow his wife to seek pleasure elsewhere, but as long as it was someone of "his bearing". She obviously doesn't follow that rule and goes with who she truly wants, no matter what social standing they may be in. This flick played out like just another one of those cheap Harlequin romance movies with corny dialogue and over passionate love scenes, but the chemistry between Lady Chatterley and the gamekeeper, Mellors, is the major strength to this otherwise mediocre historical drama. There's beautiful scenery and a genuine feel of the era its depicted in though. Overall, a good effort even though it was dragged down by the cheap quality of the notorious Cannon Group Inc. film company. Their reputation for exploitation wasn't evident here though. They allowed things to be toned down for this film and managed to make it into a pleasing love story no matter how shallow the whole thing was. It did manage to have a classy and respectable quality to it. A good effort.

Sylvia Kristel made part of my teenage years, she was an intellectual woman, but somehow just allowed his skills to made these sexploitation pictures unfortunately, she turned down several roles in a respectable pictures, his beauty however lift up dead bodies from the graves, in this famous novel, she plays a faithful wife of the Sir Clifford Chatterley, then war explodes, he will serve on Army, sadly was wounded on battle and became paraplegic for good, he advises her that could arrange a lover, she refuses, although his youth age and his sexual feelings arouse, she has a sexual attraction on the lower and rough servant Mellows, finally she was involved by him, sexuality and love, his bitter husband found it simply outrageous to him, aristocracy doesn't mix with lowers class, conceived as soft erotic movie, Kristel delivery all she can without be derogatory, the sexual relationship is usual between two people who love each other normally, a true love affair, nevertheless the movie has a clash point, how accept a lower class man overcame the strong barrier of a social strata as aristocracy, the ending spoke for itself, very underrated picture!! Resume: First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.25

If the acting in this version was any more wooden, the actors could be sold as wooden statues. How can such a passionate storyline induce such boredom and sleepiness? Ugh. The husband is just plain awful. No empathy for you, sir. You are a creep. Even the nudity is uninteresting and devoid of fire. Pass on this version. There are many others more worthy of our time.

I was expecting to see torrid love scenes but instead it was crude poking and then i discovered it was all about class snobbery and jealously ... i finally capitulated and turned it off .... if you really think a woman wants to be treated like this then it won't be your cup of tea either

If you like nudity, and watching couples f..k, there's a lot of it here. I've seen the same scenarios, with films like the great art house film, Breaking The Waves or the Roadshow's Vibrant Video's Erotic Sex Games. I admit I do like it, but to me, this was just another skin flick, dressed up in a serious, and moving drama, which it isn't. It's no surprise that 70's sex symbol, the late Sylvia Kristel, a good capable actress, would be linked with this, as I really didn't see anything impressive with this. It just comes down to everything she does. I really found her performance, mature and very sexy, here, where she really held her own, and never lacked. Clay, Lady Chatterly's husband is a paraplegic, and IMPOTENT, so our delicious Ms Chatterly must seek sexual fulfillment somewhere else, so why not the estate's fit stud lumberjack. This really brings out his angry and enraged side, something I see in these scenarios from other films, one I previously mentioned. Another example but out of this scenario, where I was drawing on the very erotically charged. Cage pic, Zandalee. But before seeing it, I knew what to expect and I was right, a Kristel, skin film, in the facade of something more, or respectable too. But I do respect the * and sex bits.

It must have seemed a high concept idea of genius to the producers, Golan and Globus of Cannon films: re-unite the director and star of the soft-* worldwide hit Emmanuelle for a big screen version of the most famous erotic novel of them all, D H Lawrence's Lady Chatterley's Lover. The film, for a British erotic flick of the time, has relatively high production values and a slew of classy but less well-known British character actors in the supporting roles. Director Jaekin makes his usual painstakingly beautiful but somewhat chocolate box soft focus images, and the whole film glides before the eye very pleasantly. The first part of the film is pretty good as well. The upper class life of the Chatterleys is well delineated, there's some breathtaking tracking shots around the Chatterley mansion and the war sequence is convincing. The first sighting of by Lady Chatterley of Mellors naked and soaping himself by his hut is sexy and ripe. But once the affair begins and the two of them are making love on a regular basis, the film's pace slows down and its dramatic level evens to a flat-line. There's some intriguing cutting between the lovers in each others arms and the crippled Lord Chatterley languishing in his bed, but it's all a bit too tastefully done - Lawrence's earthy eroticism isn't captured, nor is the script wise to have lost his salty filthy dialogue. What you get is a sort of motion picture version of high-class erotic prints. Some of Lawrence's diagnosis of the crippled state of the British aristocratic class after WW1 remains intact, and the film is helped by a very fine performance indeed by Shane Briant as the emasculated Lord. Kristel is never less than watchable as milady, and Nicolas Clay has the looks to suggest Mellors' virility, even though the director never lets him exercise it. The last quarter of the film seems rushed, and a promising sojourn to France only scratches the surface of what might have been a Sirk-like interlude of realisation that the protagonist's class and social circle offers nothing that a virile man can bring her. Best filed under intriguing failures, artistically and (to Cannon Films' chagrin) at the box office.

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 * 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