Sex Looking Beautiful  
Banned for years, 'Lady Chatterley's Lover' was the most erotic book of the century. Now a film, the torrid story remains untouched as it shows...


D.H. Lawrence's "Lady Chatterley's Lover" is perhaps the most contro­versial novel ever written. Lawrence wrote it in 1927 at the age of 42, remarking to a friend at the time: "It'll never be printed - but", he added with vehemence, "I will not cut it." Lawrence had worked hard on his manuscript - penning it three times in all - and in it he had set down every four-letter word known to erotica, every anatomically explicit description of love-play and sex, which had never been seen in print even in under-counter publications. His book was a masterpiece and he knew it. It was printed on the Continent and elsewhere in the world and sold at exorbitant prices "under plain covers" which lacked both the title and the author's name.


Finally an unexpurgated edition was pub­lished in the United States in 1959 and the following year one of the most sensational trials of the century opened at the Old Bailey, words being uttered in that venera­ble courtroom which hitherto had scarcely been heard outside a barrack room. To almost everyone's amazement, the jury acquitted the English publishers and Lawrence's novel became freely available to his fellow countrymen thirty years after his death.


The verdict also posed a problem for the cinema. An extremely bowdlerised version had once been filmed which sunk without a trace. Since then producers have fought shy of it, probably anticipating too much trouble with the film censor, who would certainly not allow the Old Bailey verdict to inhibit him from using his scissors freely in the interests of Grundy-ism. Happily producers Andre Djaoui and Christopher Pearce, and French director Just Jaeckin, have come up with a version which faithfully recreates the Lawrence story in cinematic terms and does credit to all concerned. Lady Chatterley's Lover (Cert X from Columbia Pictures) stars Sylvia Kristel in the title role, Nicholas Clay as Mellors the gamekeeper, and Shane Briant as Sir Clifford Chatterley.


The story is simple and well known to most people. Sir Clifford Chatterley, an officer in World War I, is badly wounded and paralysed from the waist down, making it impossible for him to have normal marital relations with his young wife. She tends him solicitously for a long time, but gradually nature asserts itself and her eyes stray in the direction of an extremely virile young gamekeeper. They begin what ultimately becomes a tempestuous affair, which radically changes the lives of all the principals in the drama.


Lady Chatterley's Lover without eroticism would indeed be Hamlet without the Prince, but the torrid scenes - and believe me they are torrid - are sensitively handled and few will deny that under Just Jaecklin's skilful direction, movie sex can be made to look really beautiful.


Sylvia Kristel's Connie Chatterley is convincing enough to have stepped straight out of Lawrence's book. She has the aristocratic air of one "born to the purple" while displaying the wild, sensuous beauty she made an impact as the original Emmanuelle.


Nicholas Clay's portrayal of gamekeeper Oliver Mellors is an object lesson in sheer animal virtility. When Connie first sees him taking an improvised outdoor shower, the sight of his body re-awakens desires she had been trying for long to supress.


Staking substantial claim to the acting honours is Shane Briant in the role of Sir Clifford Chatterley. We see him as a young patrician, blithley going off to war like so many of his generation in 1914. Returning as a permanent cripple, his character steadily deteriorates, eventually making him vengeful, sadistic cynic, mis-using his financial power to compensate for his lack of physical prowess.


Ann Mitchell also gives a well-timed performance as Sir Clifford's nurse, assisting Connie in her infidelities, in order to become number one herself in the crippled baronet's life. All-in-all, Lady Chatterley's Lover does full justice to D.H. Lawrence and at the same time makes for an emotive, extremely watchable and enjoyable film.