Review of Lolita (1962) by Alden S — 11 Jan 2017

Nabokov's book took five years from completion to be published in the U.S. in 1958. In '55 it was originally published by a French publisher who dealt mainly with pornographic material and it has been banned at times, but despite the central protagonist being a pedophile verging on human trafficker, it has sold hundreds of thousands of copies.

People find the controversial popular. Or at least they are curious. My wife and I listened to it on talking book during a road trip. My wife was sickened. I was reminded of Capote's In Cold Blood that I had read a year or two before.

Though America was quite conservative in the 1950s and early 60s with some mostly rural areas never abandoning conservative values, writers were exploring a darker side of humanity. In the film world, film noir had existed, but there was more in the shadows of authoritarianism and unrepentant criminals.

Nabokov may have based Humbert Humbert in part on Lewis Carroll, Charlie Chaplin, and a real-life kidnapping case involving mechanic Frank La Salle. In the film, released in the middle of 1962, Nabokov is credited with the screenplay, but evidently Kubrick barely left any of Nabokov's script intact, making many changes and allowing Sellers to improvise.

The cast led by Mason, Winters, and Lyon (in her feature debut) are well cast to bring this story from the twisted point of view of Humbert Humbert to life. I'm not that familiar with James Mason's work since he was nominated, but never won an Oscar.

He plays this untrustworthy, cagey character well, but it is Peter Sellers, another actor I am familiar with only from a limited number of outrageous comedy performances, who steals the show. Sellers's role as Clare Quilty, who also has some secret kinks, is expanded for this movie and he impressed me with more range than I had previously known he possessed.

The name Lolita has come to be understood as a sexually adventurous young woman (a nymphet, a term Nabokov invented in his novel), but that completely misinterprets the situation revealed in the story.

The girl is manipulated, groomed, and isolated as this dream creature in Humbert's mind that he wants to own. Men blaming the victim of this abuse as the perpetrator of the seduction is a big problem in our society.

Does this film contribute to that masculine misinformation or help to reveal the psychiatric sickness? Either way Kubrick is a wiz technically and artistically at telling this controversial American tale shot partially in the UK.