Lady Chatterley's Lover

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.

I haven't read the book in over 50 years but I remember it as boring and pretentious. This movie appears to be a very accurate adaptation, which is its main flaw. It is boring and pretentious. There are some very romantic scenes, especially the scene where Oliver decorates Constance's naked body with flowers. This film could never have a high rating but I feel it has been underrated by most of the reviewers.

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.

I read one of D. H. Lawrence's novel in university as part of an English course I was taking, and I found it utterly boring and not making me want to seek out his other works. The only reason why I rented this Lawrence adaptation was that it was produced by famed schlockmeisters Menahem Golan and Yorman Globus, who made some really entertaining trashy movies. This was one of the few times they tried for "respectability", though they chose a story that could also be mined for exploitation material.

But the movie fails both at its serious attempts and with its attempts at exploitation. The script has too many faults that distance the audience. The setup of the situation at the beginning of the movie goes so fast that there's no time to set up characters and make us see what they are feeling. This flaw with the characters continues as the movie goes on, and I was not sure why many times characters did what they did. Oddly, there are also a number of scenes that serve no purpose - if they had eliminated those scenes, and used the extra few minutes to pump up the characters, I'm pretty sure the movie would be a lot better.

As for the erotic element of the movie, it's not there. Even for 1981, the idea of taking a lover must have seem old hat to audiences. The nudity and sex in the movie is not the least bit erotic despite full frontal nudity and explicit sex scenes. Some of this might be blamed on the below average production values - the movie has a murky look throughout, and there's not much effort to beef up the backgrounds with extras or anything that might have taken time and expense to make.

Even if you are a Golan/Globus fanatic like I am, odds are you'll find this as dreary as I did.

Sir Clifford Chatterley and his wife Constance Chatterley (Sylvia Kristel) belong to the upper class of English society. War breaks out between England and Germany in WWI. Clifford is maimed in the trenches. He is a cripple in many ways. He permits Constance to take on a lover. She is taken with gamekeeper Oliver Mellors who works on the estate. As she starts an affair with him, Clifford becomes cruel.

This is trying to be a highbrow soft porn adaptation of the D. H. Lawrence novel. Sylvia Kristel is probably the obvious choice since becoming infamous for her Emmanuelle movies. She is not shy about showing her body but she is limited in her acting range. There isn't much in the story. Nothing is obviously bad. This could be an interesting psychological drama but this does not have the gravitas. There is no tension. It's rather flat.