Lady Chatterley's Lover (1982)

Sadly Over-hyped

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

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.

Class consciousness is the thematic excuse for this very Victorian-era story of the wife of a debilitated English aristocrat. The wife has certain "needs" that cannot be met by her husband, who is paralyzed from the waist down. So, she finds what she needs in the grounds-keeper, a ruggedly handsome man. Visual eroticism is the real theme, of course.There's not a lot to the story. The whole thing could have been neatly told in thirty minutes. Here, it's terribly drawn out, with scenes that are way too lengthy. What's really annoying is the vanity that characters exhibit. Lady Chatterley (Sylvia Kristel), in particular, is obsessed with her own body. Partially nude, she stares vainly at herself in a mirror. For his part the grounds-keeper (Nicholas Clay) likes to do outdoor chores with his shirt off, convenient for any sensual woman who just happens to be strolling by. It's all rather obvious and superficial. Only toward the end does the story actually get interesting.I do like the majestic musical score. And the cinematography isn't bad at all, with some good outdoor scenes in the fog. There are lots of close-up camera shots, and quite a few extreme close-ups. This film is obviously a Sylvia Kristel vehicle. But her acting is stilted and self-conscious.Maybe the film was sexually daring in its time. By today's standards, "Lady Chatterley's Lover" is quite tame. I would mostly describe it as slow, drawn-out, and dull, with characters who are annoyingly self-centered and vain.

1981 VHS & 2005 DVD are based uponby British novelist D.H. Lawrence's last (1928). In it's time, "Lady Chatterley's Love" was (re)viewed as "sexually scandalous"; so much so, D.H. Lawrence suffered continuously due to charges of obscenity. Like the (1928) novel, the (2005) DVD contains direct depictions of different-gender adulterous sexual intercourse. Many 'obscene' (at least for 1928!) sexual words are part of Lawrence's novel & the screenplay. As a result, the novel upon which the movie is based wasn't fully published in Britain, though it had long been available in other countries.During the 2nd half of the 20th century, in 1960, Penguin books bought out the expurgated edition & was summarily prosecuted for violating the Obscene Publication Act of 1959! Even the trial was scandalous; though, the publishers prevailed & were acquitted. Their acquittal has been viewed by academic literary & cultural critics to this day as a catalyst for the new freedom of literature & artistic expression. Some critics have regarded Lawrence as the greatest British man novelist of the early 20th century (Virginia Woolf, the woman).On to the film: it is equal to the novel in its sexological study of a paralyzed Sir Clifford Chatterley, who strongly advises his wife, Lady Constance Chatterley, to find a lover for herself in order to satisfy what Sir Clifford cannot ever give her, or so he thought: sexual fulfillment. (That belief would seem quite naive now since a wide variety of sexually satisfying techniques do not require a man who is paralyzed to be fully functioning! What is sexual & what is sexual satisfaction & pleasure has measurably changed since 1928).Lady Constance Chatterley reluctantly takes her husband's advice, being quite young & beautiful. But, after beginning a very sexually intense affair with a proletariat man, Mellors, their butch & brawny country gamekeeper, Lady Chatterley's affair shocks her husband who suggested it & the high society in which they take part.It is definitely not a movie for children because the sexual content is steamy & blatant. By contemporary standards, it is still a story of a scandalous love affair with an interesting plot; but, certainly the movie is not pornographic or unusual ("Asylum" is somewhat similar, for example). It is as much a sexology of 1920's British social class mores as anything else. Because it is a period piece that does examine an era & the moral standards of a particular class of a society, it is a more than notorious for its history of scandal: "Lady Chatterley's Lover" is loaded with Lawrence's observations & remarks about the mixture of mores for British bourgeoisie society & its double standard for women's sexuality.

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.