LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER

New Zealand Listener, Volume 36, Issue 923, 18 April 1957, Page 26

LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER

(Régie du Film-Orsay Films) R: 16 years and over ""THIS tender and phallic novel, far too good for the public," D. H. Lawrence called his Lady Chatterley’s Lover. Aldous Huxley said it was "strange and beautiful" but "inexpressibly sad." To H. E. Bates it was an "amazing piece of sentimentality," and when he asked Edward Garnett, who discovered Lawrence, what he thought of it, he was told it was "the last pressing of the grapes before the end." My own brief encounter with Lady Chatterley lasted about half an_ hour, and I have no opinion. But Marc Allegret has certainly turned it into an interesting film-French, but so_ adequately titled that soon you hardly notice it. From the bare bones of the story you might make anything or _ nothing. Crippled and unable to father a child, Sir Clifford Chatterley suggests to his faithful wife Constance that she should give him an heir by another man. From a casual encounter with their gamekeeper Mellors, handsome and virile, but not quite what Sir Clifford had in mind, Constance is drawn into a love affair which, alas for her husband, is the real thing. In some of the film’s best scenes Mellors speaks for Lawrence-who himself fell in love with a noblewoman, the wife of another man-about sex and sin and what this and’ that woman wants from marriage, and so on; and whether or not you go all the way with Lawrence, the quality of this dialogue is one reason for reckoning Lady Chatterley’s Lover more than a mere romantic ‘tale. A more important reason is that the characters really live. You won't expect Danielle Darrieaux to have any trouble with Lady Chatterley, and she hasn’t; and, whether his emotions are smouldering in love or anger, Erno Crisa, whose name is new to me, makes a fine Mellors. But the surprise is Sir Clifford-Leo Genn acting as I have never seen him act before. The opening sequence, a boar hunt with Sir Clifford in a wheel chair sounding the horn for the kill, establishes a memorable character; just as well, perhaps, since some of the succeeding scenes are no more than adequate. Others, later, are as good as the first-in Sir Clifford’s last meeting with Constance in particular Mr Genn shows remarkable feeling and authority. The film never plays down to the sensational reputation of the novel. The love scenes, beautifully done, include real insights into the human heart; the country setting has been caught in some lyric camerawork by Georges Perinal; and’ there’s a characteristic score by Joseph Kosma. I say all this aware that Lady Chatterley has not been well received by some people who should know. It’s not, I’d agree, a great film, but it lives and breathes as a human document-which is something not to be sneezed at.