"...Sorry. Sometimes I get carried away being so normal and everything..Heh..Heh..."
Clare Quilty

Credits

Director: Stanley Kubrick
Producer: James B. Harris
Screenplay: Vladimir Nabokov (w/ Stanley Kubrick, uncredited), from Nabokov's Lolita
Music: Nelson Riddle, Bob Harris
Running time: 152 min
Cast: Peter Sellers (Clare Quilty), James Mason (Humbert Humbert), Sue Lyon (Lolita), Shelley Winters (Charlotte Haze), Marianne Stone (Vivian Darkbloom), Diana Decker (Jean Farlow), Jerr Stovin (John Farlow), William Greene (Mr. Swine), Cec Linder (Dr. Keygee), Lois Maxwell (Nurse Lord), James B. Harris (Brewster)

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Plot

A middle aged European professor comes to Ramsdale to vacation for a few months before starting a lectureship at Beardsley College. Instead of peace and quiet, he meets sex starved Charlotte Haze, and her young daughter Dolores (Lolita). Thus begins Humbert's obsession. He marries Charlotte to keep close to Lolita. When Charlotte is killed in an auto accident, Humbert absconds with a willing Lolita, ultimately losing her to the wily (and most definitely not normal) writer, Clare Quilty. After a few years, Humbert meets with the now married and pregnant Lolita. When she refuses to run away with him, he gives her some money, then leaves to pay Quilty a visit.

In depth summary with quotes

Commentary

Kubrick's Lolita is an anomoly. The audience of 1962 panned it for its lack of sexuality, the Production Code objected to its tawdriness. The critics thought it strayed too far from its literary origins, Nabokov claimed he was envious of some of the material. Finally, Kubrick expressed his own dissatisfaction with his creation: "...the audience felt cheated that the erotic weight wasn't in the story. I think that it should have had as much erotic weight as the novel had". In this particular instance I think Mr. Kubrick is selling himself short, perhaps he is falling prey to that perpetual curse of the auteur: "a film is never completed, just abandoned". In any event, I believe that Lolita is Kubrick's most underrated and least appreciated film.

Of first consideration is the novel and the film. How does the movie compare with its source material? To answer this, I think it's necessary to take a brief look at the subject of cinematic adaptation of literary works. The standards by which an adaptation is judged are difficult to define. The most basic tenant seems to hold that the adaptation must, in some way, be faithful to its source. Opinions regarding what constitutes this faithfulness and the degree to which it must be maintained differ...