Rating: 
Summary: Little Lo, The Story Of A Nymphet
Review: Kubrick's masterpiece of 1962 with James Mason & Shelley Winters. It far surpasses in every way the 1998 remake (although I loved Jeremy Iron's portrayal of Humbert). Sometimes the imagination is more graphic & shocking than what is able to be filmed (especially in 1962!). Plus, the B&W lends itself well to Nabokov's novel... Read the book! It is MOST EXCELLENT also!
Rating: 
Summary: Cultural Curiosities and Corruptions
Review: This is a long film (152 minutes) and actually two-films-in-one. The first focuses on Humbert Humbert (James Mason) and his involvement with his landlady, Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters), as well as on his strong physical attraction to her teenage daughter Lolita (Sue Lyon). The second and (in my opinion) much less effective segment continues the plot but without Charlotte. Winters brings so much energy to her role as a sexually frustrated widow whose cultural pretensions are both hilarious and pathetic but never endearing. When she is no longer on screen, the plot sags. Mason's performance is consistently first-rate but Lyon's body makes promises her acting skills cannot keep. When she and Mason are required to sustain the narrative, the results are often disappointing. As for the character Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers), I really don't know what quite to make of him. Presumably he represents corruption in various forms and is viewed by Humbert is an unworthy, indeed despicable rival for Lolita's attention. For whatever reasons, Sellers seems to be going through the motions. The supporting players are OK. None stands out. Lolita was directed by Stanley Kubrick and is essentially based on Vladimir Nabakov's controversial novel in which the nymphet is 12 (not 15) and therefore her relationship with Humbert is (or was in 1955) all-the-more shocking. Because of its truly effective social satire, I would rate the first segment more than Five Stars if I could but rate the second segment (at best) Three Stars, hence the rating which appears above.
Rating:
Summary: mediocre Kubrick is still brilliant
Review: What I'll never understand is why people expect to see a word for word recreation of a book whenever it is interpreted by a filmmaker.If you know Kubrick at all,you know he only tried to realize only one artistic vision-his own.
The tongue-in-cheek/double-entendre sense of humor of this film is brilliant.Like when James Mason is tapping on a stuffed beaver with a tennis racquet.Or when he and Lolita discuss the words "mid-section" from an Edgar Allen Poe poem.It's hard to believe this film is 40 years old because it's attitude and sense of humor is so modern and hip.
Sure,Kubrick's interpretation of Nabokov's masterpiece isn't a word for word recreation.But,it's like when a musician covers a famous song.Who wants to hear him or her do it note for note?
Rating:
Summary: An All-Time Classic
Review: The Vladimir Nabokov novel from which this film came is ranked among the top 100 novels of all time in a list published by Random House, and in my estimation, Stanley Kubrick's film would make a Top 100 list as well. As nearly everyone knows, "Lolita" is about the desires of a European professor in his mid forties named Humbert Humbert (played by James Mason) for the young daughter (Sue Lyon) of a woman (Shelley Winters) from whom he's renting a room for the summer. The fourth character, TV writer Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers) offers a mix of comic relief and intrigue as he continues to show up in unlikely places throughout the film. Brilliant performances are what drive this film. Winters, especially, is brilliant as a reasonbly attractive and very needy widowed housewife. Mason moves into her home and quickly marries her for access to her daughter, who is flirting with him relentlessly. There are one liners and black humor aplenty in this film, including the funny/tragic moment when Winters' character Charlotte Haze is struck by a car and killed. This opens the door for Humbert to take Lolita away--but Clare Quilty somehow learns of the escape and follows them to Ohio, where Humbert begins teaching in earnest that fall. Ultimately, Humbert's fantasy goes up in smoke. Lolita, as he realizes, doesn't love him, and he's caught between his desires and his awareness that he's damaging the girl by stealing her childhood. And in the end, Quilty steals her away from him in an escapade that's both humorous and tragic. The prologue, which shows a broken Humbert finally locating Quilty and killing him, turns out to be effective, as the film's most moving scenes are just before we reach the end (and the murder of Quilty)--Humbert tracks down Lolita, who's now 17-18, pregnant and married. Although Humbert was despicable in his inability to curb his desires, we pity him at this juncture. This film stands the test of time as one of the all time greats. Although Adrian Lyne's remake was a worthy effort, it doesn't hold a candle to the original. Highly recommended, and a film I definitely hope won't be tampered with--adding color would rob much of the tension and ambience that made it so great.
Rating:
Summary: All-American girl.
Review: After reading the comments here, I find myself coming to the (for me) unusual position of defending Stanley Kubrick, whom I feel has to be one of the world's most overrated directors. It's somehow perfectly fitting that *Lolita*, perhaps his very best movie along with *2001*, appears not to be very highly regarded (and *2001* isn't all that well-liked either), while technically perfect but morally void exercises in sadism and misogyny like *Clockwork Orange* and *The Shining* are praised to the skies by this director's fans. But that really comes as no surprise, since the major gripe about *Lolita* seems to be that Sue Lyons isn't YOUNG enough! I guess all the would-be Alexes out there wanted a 12-year-old (Lolita's age in the novel) to get all kissy-face with James Mason. Or failing that, the critics seem to prefer what Adrian Lyne accomplished in his numbingly literal-minded remake: an older teenager that has simulated sex with Humbert. At any rate, criticisms that Kubrick's movie is too "coy" fall beside the mark when compared to Lyne's film, which ALSO "cops out" with the casting of Dominique Swain, who was obviously not twelve during the shoot. The fact is, no audience, whether 40 years ago or today, wants to see a movie that features a pre-adolescent engaged in sexual activity. This works in terms of Nabobov's novel, but would be disgusting in a movie. The miracle is that Kubrick got so much of the novel into his film (and past the censors!). Let's face it, much of the credit goes to Nabokov himself: he wrote the screenplay. I've read the novel, and I can tell you that Kubrick's *Lolita* doesn't vary all that wildly from the original. The essential thing that Nabokov and Kubrick alter is the focus on Humbert's intense passion for his "nymphet" to a focus on the hypocrisy, with regards to sexual matters, of society at large. I.e., *Lolita* the book is about one sick man; *Lolita* the movie is about one sick society. And Humbert the perfect hypocrite perfectly fits into the hypocritical milieu of suburban America. It's telling that Humbert goes as far as he does with his nubile "step-daughter" without attracting attention from anyone . . . except for fellow-pervert Quilty. (It takes one to know one.) But the great thing is that movie isn't as serious-minded as all that. There are many laughs along the way, in particular the Quilty monologues by Peter Sellers, which, while seeming at first to be of doubtful relevance, eventually emerge as commentary on the film's action. Quilty is Humbert's sick conscience, and Humbert can't get away from him. And that's lucky for us. Finally, it can't be stressed enough that *Lolita* boasts of career highs -- and I mean the highest of high watermarks -- for no less than Sellers, James Mason, Shelley Winters, Sue Lyon . . . and, I daresay, Stanley Kubrick. [DVD note: I have a copy of a Remastered Digital edition, purchased elsewhere, that Amazon doesn't appear to carry. So, you know, keep your peepers peeled.]
Rating:
Summary: Highly enjoyable, if somewhat ham-fisted
Review: There is another recent version of the Lolita story, starring Jeremy Irons. This one stars James Mason. I expected a character drama, but the first minutes quickly set me straight. This is a dark comedy. With that in mind, Kubrick's version of the famous story is highly enjoyable, if somewhat ham-fisted. It is mainly a comedy about cruelty : Humbert's cruelty towards Charlotte Haze, Lolita's mother, Humbert's cruelty towards Lolita, and Lolita's cruelty towards Humber. It is, of course, pathetic, and the opening scene (which chronologically is the ending) is a good display of that, as Humbert guns down a drunkard in his own house. Who that drunkard is, and why he is gunned down, is part and parcel of the whole story (albeit no one will have trouble seeing how it will all end after the first hour). Charlotte Haze: Whenever you touch me, darling, I go as limp as a noodle.
Humbert Humbert: Yes, I am familiar with that feeling.
Rating: 
Summary: An Underdeveloped "Lolita"
Review: Humbert Humbert, a European literary scholar, needs a place to stay for the summer before he heads off to his teaching position at a Ohio college. One needy, insistent lady attempts to lure him into her home, but Humbert is resistant to her offers--until he sees her 15 year old daughter, Lolita . . . one thing leads to another, Humbert marries Lolita's mother in order to get close to Lolita, and he writes about his secret, tortured passions in his diary. Meanwhile, the TV writer Clare Quilty has also set his sights on Lolita, and is aware of Humbert's infatuation for her. This will bode ill for the future of all three of them, especially for the jealous, conflicted, and pathetic Humbert. I have not read Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita, so I have no point of comparison with it as I watched the film. Reportedly, though the screenplay is credited to Nabokov himself, Kubrick used relatively little of it as he adapted it for the screen. The result is a mixed bag. James Mason's performance as Humbert is outstanding--he captures the outwardly civilized, tormented, and unsavory nature of Humbert Humbert very well, with his dapper accent and body language. Shelley Winters also does a fine job portraying Humbert's shrewish wife, though the character is a bit one-dimensional. Sue Lyons, who plays Lolita, does not fare so well, though this is in part to her seeming too old to be a nymphet; she acts the part of a bratty late teenager than of someone who is just entering adolescence. Also, Kubrick's plan was to turn this moral tragedy into a kind of black comedy, which is why Peter Sellers (as Clare Quilty) shows up and tries to leaven the atmosphere. While Sellers is great at doing impressions, especially of the German Freudian psychiatrist, his performance feels out of place in a film that should be more about Humbert's internal conflicts. (When put in the right context, as in Dr. Strangelove, Sellers shines very brightly indeed.) Also, I'm not sure the circular structure of the film is necessary or effective, as all it did was to confuse me initially. The cinematography is not of particular note, which is a bit unusual for a Kubrick film, though the overall direction is tight and Kubrick already shows a mastery of rendering interior conflict and character without being too overt or obvious. (Lolita, in fact, is one of his most character-oriented films, debunking the idea that he prefers machines to humans or that his films are cold and lifeless.) But this early effort, while smooth and watchable, feels coy and underdeveloped, perhaps because of the censorship of the era, perhaps because Nabokov's book is inherently unfilmable--whatever the reason, Kubrick would go on to do greater work.
Rating:
Summary: Three very important themes in this movie...
Review: The three important themes in this movie that were emphasized were, one, respect the power of sex; two, respect for other people's feelings; three, with certain exceptions, no person is all bad (James Mason's character). A GREAT FILM, DEFINITELY WORTH DISCUSSING.
Rating: 
Summary: USE A 12 YEAR-OLD!!!!!
Review: First of all I want to say that i really loved the book
lolita.But when i saw the movie it was a big dissapoitment,
and thats a shame for such a beautifull story, lets start
with the main characteur 'lolita' of course, yeah sure
sue lyon is a beautifull girl in the movie ,but lets face it
she's just 2 old, she has 2 play a 12-year old, and whe all know
how whe are when whe where 12 right?Her real age was fifteen!!
allright i thought mabey she could play her part real good.
But instead she plays the nymphet of 12!!!, she acts
like a grown-up not only that....she even looked older than her real age, in spite of that they diddn't want to shock the world
with giving the part to a real 12-year old girl, i think it was better that they did!!! IM 12 YEAR OLD MYSELF.if you want some advice from me watch lolita 1997 with jeremy irons.
Rating:
Summary: Good movie, horrible adaptation
Review: I'll just say right off, Lolita is my favorite book, and what I love most about it are the parts that could not in any way be translated into movie form, so I went into this movie with reservations.
I could never imagine liking the book and this movie; you'd have to be able to completely separate them in your mind. Kubrick, using Nabokov's screenplay, does a great job with the humor of the book; unfortunately, he feels the need to amplify it, maybe because so much of the book has to be left out. The best thing, in my opinion, about the book is its use of language; it uses such beautiful, intricate, poetic language to describe such deplorable things, and makes it all funny, too. The language, symbolism, allusions and puns Nabokov uses could never be brought to the screen, and if you've lost that, you've lost half the book. You're left with a fascinating, sensational plot that in the novel is just the starting point; you can read it just for the story, but you'll have missed a lot. Another problem is the casting. Sue Lyon is too old, too movie-ish, and too obviously attractive. James Mason is too...James Mason-y. Peter Sellers gives an excellent performance; unfortunately, his Quilty is not in any way related to the Quilty of the book. The one exception is Shelley Winters, who is funny, pathetic, annoying, and ultimately tragic as Charlotte Haze- dead on.
If you want to see an interesting, well done, well-acted movie, then by all means see Stanley Kubrick's version of Lolita. If you want all that scandal and story mixed with unbelieveable mastery of language and humor, then buy a copy of the book.
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