Lolita
1962
***½
Director: Stanley Kubrick
Cast: James Mason, Shelley Winters, Sue Lyon, Peter Sellers, Gary Cockrell, Jerry Stovin
Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's eloquent novel, which he co-scripted with the author, is a bold but long film which tones down the book's controversial content. Its protagonist Humbert Humbert is a college professor who is hypnotized by his landlady's sexy 14-year-old daughter. The skeptics say that this is nothing but a smutty story about a dirty old man, but it's a clever and captivating dark comedy about obsessiveness and possessiveness. The book was refilmed by Adrian Lyne in 1997.
