Rating: 
Summary: Best Lolita
Review: Far, far better than the recent interpretation with Jeremy Irons, this one featured Peter Sellers as Quilty in one of the great bad guy characterizations in cinematic history. (Were it not for the scandalous nature of this subject matter in 1962, he's have surely won an Oscar.) The screenplay was written by Nabokov himself. So this version conveys, I think, the spirit of the affliction better than the newer film which was marred by too much (for me)offensive violence.
Rating: 
Summary: SAW IT ON TV
Review: I saw this movie on TV on TCM a little while ago. It is without a doubt worth watching once, if not worth buying. The acting by James Mason and Peter Sellars is way more than you even have a right to expect from those two great performers. Not only that, but the plot is interesting and holds your attention right to the end. I only wish the DVD has more special features on it. But really, if the only problem with a movie is the fact that there aren't enough extras on the DVD, then that means the movie is one hell of a good one.
A definite must see.
Rating: 
Summary: Lolita
Review: Very risque movie for the times, but a must see.James Mason gives a wonderful performance. Good casting all the way/ Great acting /Probably best performance of Sue Lyons career.Also would recommend remake starring Jeremy Irons . Not as good as the original but not bad.Both movies are worth a watch. Enjoy Lisa C.
Rating:
Summary: Girls Mature Faster than James Mason
Review: From the moment Humbert Humbert (James Mason) sees Lolita (Sue Lyons) lounging on the grass in her backyard in bikini and sunglasses, he's befuddled. Ain't no way he's gonna pass up renting a room from Lolita's mom, Mrs. Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters) now. So the emigre spends the summer mooning after the 13-year-old nymphette while holding off the advances of the amorous landlady, as author Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers) and his beatnik girlfriend make a big splash at the local dance.I enjoyed "Lolita" immensely, much more than I thought I would, although I didn't expect the movie to take the plot twists it did, some of which are quite jarring. Still, the actors are all first-rate. James Mason does a great job as Humbert, appropriately out of it for some scenes, conveying a certain nonconversance with the English language without feigning any sort of accent different from his own famous one. Sue Lyons does the bored teenager quite well, very naturalistic. The real startler, though, is Peter Sellers, whose American accent is right on the money, and who manages to contrive several subcharacters within Clare Quilty. It's a pity, really, that he got so bogged down with Inspector Clousseau and didn't display the full range he might have more often. Make a date soon to find out "How did they ever make a movie out of Lolita?" and see if you are as helpless as poor James Mason.
Rating:
Summary: Middle-Aged Professor Obsessed With 12-Year Old Girl
Review: Ever since the enormous success (and controversy) of this film, we have added the term "Lolita Syndrome" to Webster's Dictionary. The term refers to the obsessive attraction an older man has for a very young female (usually a minor under law). -- James Mason plays Professor Humbert, who seeks temporary room and board at Shelley Winter's house in order to concentrate on writing his novel. Undecided about the accomodations, he suddenly sees Winter's seductive 12-year old daughter Lolita (played by a slightly more mature Sue Lion) and now MUST stay. -- Over the next several weeks Mason hopelessly falls into lust and adoration with the ever-teasing Lion, while Winters develops similar feelings for Mason (who at first is oblivious to his amourous effect on the lonely widow). A sudden twist of fate keeps Mason around, allowing for the poor fool to deterorate emotionally, leading to his toal insanity. -- The character played by Peter Sellers is equally pathetic, but Mason reminds of Emil Jannings in "The Blue Angel", where he potrayed the sad "Professor Rath" seduced and ruined by the temptress "Lola" (Marlene Dietrich). -- Although enjoying worldwide controversy back in 1962 as today, Stanley Kubrick's "Lolita" is not entirely true to Vladimir Nabokov's novel. Twisting some of the characters into completely different people than Nabokov had intended, Kubrick made this another true Kubrick creation. Nabokov did recive credit for scripting. The catchy score adds a nice touch!
Rating:
Summary: Not one of Kubrick's Best!
Review: But even Kubrick's lesser films are better than 99% of all other films. Beuatifully remastered with wonderful greyscale in the B&W photography :)
Rating:
Summary: Brillant!! An American Classic!! Dwarfs the remake!!!
Review: This is indeed a very good movie. You have a perfect cast 'N crew. It is based on an excellent novel by a outstanding novelist, Vladamir Nabakov (who also wrote, "King, Queen, Knave," "Pale Fire" "Glory" and lots more), who also wrote the adapted screenplay. And then there is director Stan Kubrick, and then there's a terrific cast. The DVD, though, can have a lot more Special Features. Maybe in the year 2002, they will make a 40th Anniversy Collectors Edition, with a lot of suff, maybe even colorized. If you ever happen to be video store and there's nothing else to rent, DO NOT rent the remake. Rent this version. It's much better. Another good movie that came out 1962 was "Cape Fear", also it's remake wasn't really good either...
Rating:
Summary: Half a masterpiece.
Review: The first half of 'Lolita' is surely the best film ever made - tantalising black comedy, audacious comic set-pieces, squirmingly pitch-perfect performances, in particular James Mason, required to be different persons to different people, embody European sophistication and seedy middle-age, project different emotions, verbally and physically, and perform in different registers (farce, melodrama, tragedy etc.), SIMULTANEOUSLY, which he does with grace, sincerity and wit. He IS Humbert, and his cha-cha-cha seduction by Charlotte is one of cinema's great sequences, although Nabokov himself preferred his supping champagne in the bath after the car accident. The second half isn't. So much excellence is packed into the first that decline is inevitable. Nonetheless, this is a major Kubrick film. The use of a foreigner and paedophile to test the limits of society's tolerance (e.g. the violence in the hospital, the surveillance in Beardsley) is an artistic improvement on the one-sided 'Paths of Glory', and points towards the anguish of 'A Clockwork Orange'. Humbert is in the great tradition of Kubrick heroes who reach a point of masculine power which then spectacularly unravels. His controlling point of view is constantly undermined by the unnoticed games of Quilty, Lolita, Nabokov and Kubrick, an acceptable tanspositon of Nabokov's narrative minefield. The author's parody of Gothic doppelgangers (Quilty as the embodiment of Humbert's conscience or 'bad' side) is actually transcended by Kubrick with a framing story, Humbert coming to face Quilty, that, for the alert viewer, opens endless metaphysical possibilities.
Rating:
Summary: How Did They Ever Make A Movie Of Lolita?
Review: Lolita by far is one of the morally saddest and depressing fims of all time. But somehow...it has been pulled of. Stanley Kubrick directed this masterpiece of Dysfunctional Family Problems in 1962. Now being as im rather young...doesnt mean that i was unable to enjoy and appreciate this work of art. It is at times rather slow, and tedious, but hey! Its a Kubrick Film! All of his films were overlong, and many over-rated! But this is a true piece of American Art! Never should be forgotten by the public nor everyday film goers. Kudos to Kubrick for making such a controversial book into an equally satisfying film in the earlier 60's!
Rating:
Summary: Different from the book, though still good.
Review: While the film is ostensibly about a girl named Lolita, it is instead about two ageing males, trying, in the final gyrations before their own deaths, to at least be tragic. The book could just as easily be called Humbert and Quilty, without losing anything. Lolita the character does not serve as much more than as a plot device, and as a point of conflict between the two megalomaniacal antiheroes. Lolita as a book is altogether too grand to be made into a two hour film. The decsion to select only the story of HH & CQ makes much more sense than an attempt to tell the story in a narrative fashion (as Lynne attempted). The man v. man conflict is by far a superior plot to be adapted to film than the man v. self conflict, or girl v. machinia also found in the book. It is dramatic, rather than introspective, and plays far better on the screen. What happens in this film that does not keep exactly to the novel is that someone who truly loves the book can still enjoy it. Instead of trying simply to tell the story again, it expands upon one a subplot. It is by far the superior of the two adaptations.
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