TheLittleSongbird Lady Chatterley's Lover is understandably controversial but it is also a compelling read, though not a personal favourite. This film is not exactly terrible as there are some good things to see on display but the maligning it has gotten is as understandable as the book being controversial. The photography mostly has a nostalgic quality to it while the costumes and sets are exquisite in colour and detail. The score is seductive and hauntingly beautiful, Sylvia Kristel is a real beauty, the second half is an improvement over the first half with some appropriately steamy moments and Nicholas Clay as well as being astonishingly handsome and sexy is quite good as Oliver. Unfortunately Kristel's acting talents do not translate here, throughout she is very wooden and bland, while on the other side of the scale Shane Briant's hammy over-acting grates after a while. The supporting cast, and there are some talented actors here, are unable to do much with characters that are written to caricatures(blander than that in some cases). Some of the sexy moments are sensual but too many and most of them verge on lowbrow and too much like a porn film, the book is an explicit one but it's not that trashed up. The script is very underwritten and banal, it is difficult to take seriously anything that the actors say, while the storytelling is really dull with non-existent passion in the first half, the main reason being that while the basic story of the book is intact, the prose, characterisations and passion(mostly) are barely scarce. Some of the editing looks hastily-put together too. All in all, Lady Chatterley's Lover looks good but it is dull and underwritten, and takes the sexual nature of the book to extremes, well at least to me it did. 4/10 Bethany Cox

bAzTNM Better than expected version of the old smutty D.H. Lawrence story of a posh bit having an affair with a rough games-keeper.To be honest, I'd probably say the BBC version with Sean Bean around 1995 was a lot more sleazier. Most of the sex here is done in a jokey style, if that makes sense. Kristel is dubbed I bet you. I've not looked at IMDb.com yet, but I'm betting she was. Nicholas Clay is hilarious in his role as Mellors. It's like a porn star version of Gazza when he talks. You wouldn't think that accent comes from his mouth.Bloody excellent soundtrack too. Current searching to see if it available anywhere.Mildly recommended.

Wizard-8 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.

garycorbin1 This movie is a good starter for heating up the romance in your life, especially if your female mate is a bit conservative as is my wife. We found the plot acceptable enough to keep our attention, while providing beautiful scenery and cinematography. The acting of the husband was a bit stiff and he occasionally seemed to be reading his lines. The twists along the way kept my wife intrigued and the love scenes did not offend her, as they were done in good taste. The plot is not terribly difficult to predict, but interesting to watch unfold just the same. A good movie to get the romantic fires ignited for a good evening of love making.