How Did They Ever Make a Movie of Lolita? 09/17/24

An Article
by Charlie Largent

From September 6  It’s a pure case of ‘they said it couldn’t be done,’ but Stanley Kubrick got the jist of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel across even if he had to sidestep its directly censorable core. Charlie Largent discusses Kubrick’s career miracle and the choice of a novel that to most movie pros seemed a death trap. Filmed in a fake America constructed in England, the story is diverted to a battle of wits between James Mason’s Humbert Humbert and Peter Sellers’ Claire Quilty — whatever one might think, Mason’s pathetic writer-with-an-obsession and Shelley Winters’ equally pathetic romantic dupe are characters of high tragedy.
09/06/24