Lolita (1962 film)

Lolita
File:LolitaPoster.jpg Theatrical Poster
Directed by	Stanley Kubrick
Written by	Vladimir Nabokov Stanley Kubrick
Produced by	James B. Harris
Starring	James Mason Shelley Winters Sue Lyon Peter Sellers
Cinematography	Oswald Morris
Edited by	Anthony Harvey
Music by	Nelson Riddle Theme: Bob Harris
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release dates	13 June, 1962
Running time	152 minutes
Countries	United Kingdom United States
Language	English
Budget	US$2,100,000

For the 1997 film, see Lolita (1997 film).

Lolita is an influential 1962 film by Stanley Kubrick based on the classic novel of the same title by Vladimir Nabokov. The film stars James Mason as Humbert Humbert, Sue Lyon as Dolores Haze (Lolita) and Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze with Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty.

Due to the MPAA's restrictions at the time, the film toned down the more perverse aspects of the novel, sometimes leaving much to the audience's imagination. The actress who played Lolita, Sue Lyon, was fourteen at the time of filming. Kubrick later commented that, had he realized how severe the censorship limitations were going to be, he probably never would have made the film.

Plot

The film begins in a battle between two men, which ends with one of them, Clare Quilty, being shot. The shooter was Humbert Humbert (played by Mason), a 40-something British professor of French literature; he is also an obsessive pedophile. The film then turns to events 4 years earlier and goes forward as Humbert travels to Ramesdale, New Hampshire, a small town where he will spend the summer before his professorship begins at Beardsley College, Ohio. He searches across the town for room to let, being tempted by widowed, sexually famished mother, Charlotte Haze (played by Winters) to stay at her house. He declines until seeing her beautiful 14-year-old daughter, Dolores Haze (played by Lyon), affectionately called “Lolita” (hence the title). Lolita is a soda-pop drinking, gum-chewing, overtly flirtatious teenager, whom Humbert falls hopelessly in love with.

File:Lolita 1962 02.jpg

Lolita played by Sue Lyon.

In order to become close to Lolita, Humbert accepts Charlotte's offer and becomes a lodger in the Haze household. Soon, however, Charlotte announces that she will be sending Lolita to an all-girl sleep-away camp for the summer. On the morning of departure, Humbert receives a love confession note from Charlotte, asking Humbert to leave at once. The note says that if Humbert is still in the house when Charlotte returns from driving Lolita to camp, then he must join Charlotte in marriage. Humbert willingly marries Charlotte days later. After the wedding and honeymoon, Charlotte discovers Humbert’s diary entries describing his passion for Lolita, and has an emotional outburst. She threatens to leave forever, taking Lolita far away from Humbert. While Humbert hurriedly fixes martinis in the kitchen to smooth over the situation, Charlotte runs outside, gets hit by a speeding car, and dies.

File:Lolita 1962 03.jpg

Lolita and Humbert on their extensive travels across the United States.

Several days later Humbert drives to Camp Climax to pick up Lolita, and as they travel from hotel to motel across the United States, they begin a sexual relationship. In public, they act as father and daughter to avoid suspicion. During their travels, Humbert tells Lolita that her mother is not sick in hospital, but dead – deeply saddened and affected, she stays with Humbert, believing he is her only comfort. Months later, Humbert and Lolita’s car trips are followed by the same car. As Lolita becomes sick from the common cold, she is hospitalized, and eventually kidnapped by the follower, Clare Quilty (played by Peter Sellers), a famous playwright, whom Lolita had a crush on for some time. Years after the kidnapping, Humbert receives a letter from Lolita in which she says that she is now married to a man named Dick, and that she is pregnant and in desperate need of money. Humbert travels to Lolita and Dick’s home, where Lolita is waiting. Humbert finds that she is no longer the precocious young girl he once loved, but a 17-year-old heavily pregnant woman, in a happy relationship – only he is even more in love with her now. Humbert demands that Lolita tell him who kidnapped her three years earlier. She tells him it was “the man that was following us”, Clare Quilty. After meeting Dick, Humbert asks Lolita to come away with him. She declines, preferring her new life. Humbert, deeming Quilty responsible for taking his love, goes off to shoot him in his mansion—where the film began.

Production

Direction

With Nabokov’s consent, Kubrick changed the order in which events unfolded by moving what was the novel’s ending to the start of the film, a literary device known as in medias res. Kubrick determined that while this sacrificed a great ending, it helped maintain interest, as he believed that interest in the novel sagged halfway through once Humbert was successful in seducing Lolita.

The second half contains an odyssey across the United States and though the novel was set in the 1940s Kubrick gave it a contemporary setting, shooting many of the exterior scenes in England. Some of the minor parts were played by Canadian and American actors, such as Cec Linder, Lois Maxwell, Jerry Stovin and Diana Decker, who were based in England at the time. Kubrick had to film in England as much of the money to finance the movie was not only raised there but also had to be spent there.

Censorship

The moral values and censorship of the time inhibited Kubrick's direction. Kubrick commented that, “because of all the pressure over the Production Code and the Catholic Legion of Decency at the time, I believe I didn't sufficiently dramatize the erotic aspect of Humbert's relationship with Lolita. If I could do the film over again, I would have stressed the erotic component of their relationship with the same weight Nabokov did.” In a 1972 Newsweek interview, Kubrick said that had he realized how severe the censorship limitations were going to be, he "probably wouldn't have made the film."

Lolita's age was raised to fourteen, as Kubrick believed that this was the right age. He has commented that, “I think that some people had the mental picture of a nine-year-old, but Lolita was twelve and a half in the book; Sue Lyon was thirteen.” (Actually, Lyon was 14 at the time of filming: she was born in July 1946 and it was shot between November 1960 and May 1961.)

Writing and narration

Humbert uses the term 'nymphet' to describe Lolita, which he explains in and uses throughout the novel; it only appears once in the movie and its meaning is left undefined. In a voiceover on the morning after the Ramsdale High School dance, Humbert confides in his diary, “What drives me insane is the twofold nature of this nymphet, of every nymphet perhaps, this mixture in my Lolita of tender, dreamy childishness and a kind of eerie vulgarity. I know it is madness to keep this journal, but it gives me a strange thrill to do so. And only a loving wife could decipher my microscopic script.”

This voiceover is a part of Humbert’s narration, which was central to the novel. Kubrick uses it sparingly and, apart from the above comment, only to set the scene for the film’s next act. Humbert’s comments are generally simple statements of fact, spiced with the odd personal reflection.

The only other one of these reflections which makes reference to Humbert’s feelings towards Lolita is made after their move from Ramsdale to Beardsley. Here Humbert's comment seems to show only an interest in her education and cultural development: “Six months have passed and Lolita is attending an excellent school where it is my hope that she will be persuaded to read other things than comic books and movie romances”.

The narration begins after the opening scenes but ceases once the odyssey begins. Kubrick makes no attempt to explain Humbert's fascination with Lolita, which a full narration would have done, but merely treats it as a matter of fact. An explanation might well have made Humbert a more sympathetic character, which may not have suited a censor in 1962.

Casting

James Mason plays Professor Humbert Humbert, who falls under Lolita's spell. He is smooth, charming, self-assured and a little condescending, as might be expected in an academic. Shelley Winters plays Charlotte Haze, the loud, overbearing, status-seeking widow who is both Humbert's landlady and Lolita's mother. When she develops a romantic interest in Humbert, Charlotte's pushy advances as parried by Humbert's barely concealed sarcasm become comedic. Sue Lyon's performance as Lolita is more restrained, but this may well result from concerns about the censor. When allowed freedom to act, she subtly shows the darker side of Lolita's character. Peter Sellers' performance as Clare Quilty was generally acclaimed at the time. The character’s role was greatly expanded from that in the novel and Kubrick allowed Sellers to adopt a variety of disguises throughout the film.

In the earlier sections of the film, Quilty is a conceited, avant-garde TV writer with a superior manner. In later scenes, he becomes the overbearing 'bad cop' on the porch of the motel where Humbert and Lolita are staying. Then he changes to the intrusive authoritarian German professor, Doctor Zempf, who appears in Humbert's front room for the purpose of ordering him to give Lolita more freedom in her after-school activities. The author and film critic Tim Dirks has commented that Sellers' smooth German-like accent and the chair-bound pose in this scene are similar to that of Dr. Strangelove in Kubrick's future film Dr. Strangelove. Thomas Allen Nelson has said that in this part of his performance, “Sellers twists his conception of Quilty toward that neo-Nazi monster, who will roll out of the cavernous shadows of Dr. Strangelove”.

Screenplay

The screenplay is credited to Nabokov, although very little of what he provided (later published in a shortened version) was used. Nabokov remained polite about the film in public, but in a 1962 interview, before seeing the film, commented that it may turn out to be "the swerves of a scenic drive as perceived by the horizontal passenger of an ambulance".

Remake

Lolita was filmed again in 1997. The film was not as well received as Kubrick's version, and was a major box office bomb, grossing only $1 million at the US box office.

Cast

• James Mason as Prof. Humbert Humbert
• Shelley Winters as Charlotte Haze-Humbert
• Sue Lyon as Dolores "Lolita" Haze
• Peter Sellers as Clare Quilty
• Gary Cockrell as "Dick" Schiller
• Jerry Stovin as John Farlow (Ramsdale lawyer)
• Diana Decker as Jean Farlow
• Lois Maxwell as Nurse Mary Lore
• Cec Linder as Dr. Keegee (at hospital)
• Bill Greene as George Swine (hotel night manager in Bryceton)
• Shirley Douglas as Mrs. Starch (piano teacher in Ramsdale)
• Marianne Stone as Vivian Darkbloom
• Marion Mathie as Miss Lebone
• James Dyrenforth as Frederick Beale Sr.
• Maxine Holden as Miss Fromkiss (hospital receptionist)
• John Harrison as Tom

Reception

Lolita premiered on 13 June, Template:Fy in New York City. It performed fairly well, with little advertising relying mostly on word-of-mouth — many critics seemed uninterested or dismissive of the film while others gave it glowing reviews. However, the film was very controversial, due to the pedophilia-related content, and therefore while many things are suggested, hardly any are shown. Sue Lyon was barred from the premiere due to the film's "Adults Only" status at the time.

Years after the film's release it has been released on VHS, Laserdisc and DVD. It received $3,700,000 rentals in the USA on VHS.

Differences between the film and the book

There are many differences in the film and book. Many of the more explicit parts of the book were taken out of the film due to the strict censors of the 1960s, and the events of the film do not match the events of the novel exactly. Some of the differences are listed below:

• The critical episode in Humbert's life in which he at age 14 was interrupted making love to young Anabel Leigh who shortly thereafter died is entirely omitted. In the novel, Humbert gives this as the key to his obsession with nymphets.

• Quilty's role is greatly magnified, brought much more into the foreground of the narrative, whereas in the novel, Humbert catches only brief glimpses of his nemesis before their final confrontation at Quilty's home. Quilty's role in the events of the story is made fully explicit, rather than concealed.

• In the novel, Miss Pratt, the school principal at Beardsley, discusses with Humbert Lolita's various behavioral issues and finally persuades Humbert into letting Lolita participate in the school play. In the movie, this role is replaced by the disguised Quilty under the alias of "Dr. Zemph" (this disguise is not in the novel at all).

• The name "Lolita" is only used by Humbert in the novel. By contrast, several of the characters in the film refer to her by the pet name.

• Lolita's age was raised from 12 to 14, to meet the MPAA standards.

• In the novel, Lolita wasn't blonde; she was described as having short chestnut-brown hair in a bob style, and honey-tanned skin. In the film Lolita has blonde shoulder length hair.

• In the movie, Sue Lyon is attractive by conventional standards, but in the novel, both Charlotte and Humbert comment on Lolita's lack of conventional attractiveness, and it is hinted that this is why greater suspicion does not fall on Humbert.

• The relationship between Humbert and alcoholic Rita was left out of the film.

• In the book, Humbert and Charlotte go swimming in Hourglass Lake, where Charlotte announces she will ship Lo off to a good boarding school; that part takes place in bed in the film.

• In the novel, Humbert gives a total monetary sum of $4,000 to 17-year-old Lolita. In the movie, this amount is magnified to $13,900.

Awards

The film was nominated for 7 Awards, including an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay, and won a Golden Globe for Most Promising Newcomer which went to Sue Lyon.

Wins

• Golden Globe Award for Most Promising Newcomer for Sue Lyon

Nominations

• Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Vladimir Nabokov
• British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award for Best Actor for James Mason
• Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Motion Pictures for Stanley Kubrick
• Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actor for James Mason
• Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture Actress for Shelley Winters
• Golden Globe Award Best Motion Picture Director for Stanley Kubrick
• Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor for Peter Sellers
• Venice Film Festival Award for Best Director for Stanley Kubrick

Alternate versions

• The scene where Lolita first "seduces" Humbert as he lies in the cot is a good 10 seconds longer in the British and Australian cut of the film. In the U.S. cut, the shot fades as she whispers the details of the "game" she played with Charlie at camp. In the UK/Australian print, the shot continues as Humbert mumbles that he's not familiar with the game. She then bends down again to whisper more details. Kubrick then cuts to a closer shot of Lolita's head as she says "Well, alrighty then" and then fades as she begins to descend onto Humbert on the cot. The latter cut of the film was used for the Region 1 DVD release.

• The Criterion laserdisc release is the only one to use a transfer approved by Stanley Kubrick. This transfer alternates between a 1.33 and a 1.66 aspect ratio (as does the Kubrick-approved 'Strangelove' transfer). All subsequent releases to date have been 1.66 (which means that all the 1.33 shots are slightly matted).

• The BBFC cut the film in 1961 for an 'X' rating.

Actors who came close to appearing

File:Lolita 1962 01.jpg

Lolita when Humbert first meets her, sunbathing in her backyard.

• James Mason was the first choice of director Stanley Kubrick and producer James B. Harris for the role of Humbert Humbert, but he initially declined due to a Broadway engagement. Laurence Olivier then refused the part, apparently on the advice of his agents. Kubrick considered Peter Ustinov, but decided against him. Harris then suggested David Niven; Niven accepted the part, but then withdrew for fear the sponsors of his TV show, "Four Star Playhouse" (1952), would object. Mason then withdrew from his play and got the part. Harris denies claims that Noel Coward also rejected the role.
• Tuesday Weld was considered for the role of Lolita.
• Hayley Mills also turned down the role of Lolita. At the time, her father, John Mills was credited with the decision; later, Walt Disney.
• Stanley Kubrick originally wanted Joey Heatherton for the title role of Lolita, but her father Ray Heatherton said no for fear his daughter would be typecast as a "promiscuous sex kitten."

References

Additional sources

• Richard Corliss, Lolita London: British Film Institute, 1994; ISBN 0-85170-368-2

External links

• Lolita at IMDb.
• Lolita at AllMovie.
• Lolita at the TCM Movie Database.