Lolita (1962, UK/US)

In Stanley Kubrick's sixth film - a brilliant, black comedy and sly adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's celebrated yet controversially-infamous 1955 novel of a middle-aged man's unusual, doomed sexual passion/obsession for a precocious, seductive "nymphet" girl; it was a dramatic story of juvenile temptation and perverse, late-flowering lust, told mostly in flashback. The tale was told as a black comedy, murder mystery and unusual 'love' story. During the film's production, however, it was marked by the threat of censorship and denial of a Seal of Approval from the film industry's Production Code.

The black humor and dramatic story was centered on a pubescent nymphet and a mature literature professor in an aura of incest. Its most troublesome character was not Lolita or the nymphet pervert (Humbert Humbert (James Mason)), but implied pedophile and child pornographer Claire Quilty (Peter Sellers) who assumed various disguises.

[Note: The age of Lolita in Nabokov's novel was raised from 12 years old to that of a typical high-schooler - probably 14 or 15.] Rather than a film of overt sexuality and prurient subject matter, its content was deliberately mostly suggestive, with numerous double entendres, whisperings, meaningful facial expressions, and metaphoric sexual situations, with carefully-placed fades to black. The film's publicity posters, often with a picture of Lolita wearing heart-shaped sunglasses and in a seductive pose licking a red lollipop, asked with its taglines: "How did they ever make a movie of LOLITA?", and "No longer a child...Not yet a woman...WHAT IS SHE?"

• under the opening credits, an erotic pedicure scene was viewed; obsessed, middle-aged boarder and literature professor Humbert Humbert (James Mason) cradled the title character's foot and then lovingly and devotedly painted her toenails with bright enamel; the sequence contained some of the most overtly-erotic, idealizing images of the entire film - designed to set the tone for what was to come; the images hinted at pedophilia during a pedicure (with an over-controlling and possessive male protagonist)
• in the film's opening prologue, Humbert's car drove headlong into the fog toward the mansion of TV writer/pedophile Claire Quilty (Peter Sellers); Humbert was insanely motivated to commit murder for Quilty's duplicity; he blamed him for his part in seducing, running off and abandoning nymphet teenager Dolores 'Lolita' Haze (Sue Lyon); at first, a mad Ping-Pong match was in progress between the threatening, violent, and sexually jealous Humbert and his opponent Quilty
• with his gun drawn, Humbert asked: "Do you want to die standing up or sitting down?"; multiple gunshots were delivered by vengeful middle-aged literature professor Humbert Humbert as he wounded Quilty in the leg and then emptied all six rounds of his gun

Prologue: Deadly Shooting of Claire Quilty by Humbert
Humbert to Quilty: "Do you want to die standing up or sitting down?"	Humbert Wielding a Gun at Quilty

• Quilty dragged himself away to find cover behind a Victorian, Gainsborough-type watercolor painting of an 18th century genteel young woman); Quilty screamed with childlike disbelief: "That hurts!" before slumping over dead - he was shot through the painting where he was hiding; the camera's frame lingered on one of the bullet holes ripped through the face of the demure, innocent young woman - a symbol of abuse

Quilty Murdered Behind Victorian Portrait

• after the opening prologue (the first ten minutes of the film), the film then returned to events that began four years earlier - recalling what led up to the killing of Quilty who had uncaringly seduced Lolita; Humbert's murder victim was a scheming, degenerate and ill-fated 'genius' whom Lolita loved and eventually ran off with; Quilty bedeviled, induced paranoia and baited the avenging tragic figure Humbert - the nymphet pervert
• the first image of sultry and nubile 'Lolita' was in a skimpy, two-piece bikini while sunbathing on a blanket in her backyard lawn in Ramsdale, NH - sporting a broad-brimmed, feathered straw hat and heart-shaped plastic sunglasses - accompanied by a "Yi Yi" bubble-gum theme song (on her transister radio) as Humbert was led through the house by Lolita's blowsy mother Charlotte (Shelley Winters); she noted: ("My flowers win prizes around here! They're the talk of the neighborhood. Voila!...My yellow roses. My - daughter....I can offer you a comfortable home, a sunny garden, a congenial atmosphere, my cherry pies")
• after seeing Lolita, Humbert quickly reconsidered her offer to rent a room for "something nominal, let's say, uh, two hundred a month... including meals, and uh, late snacks, etcetera...uh, you couldn't find better value in West Ramsdale"; Charlotte was curious about what clinched the deal for him to move into the house: "What was the decisive factor? Uh, my garden?" Avoiding the truth, Humbert replied, tongue-in-cheek with a clever double entendre: "I think it was your cherry pies!"; the scene ended on another long stare from Lolita
• in a night-time scene in Charlotte's home, devious boarder and middle-aged Professor Humbert Humbert began to demonstrate his growing obsession with 'Lolita'; as he was playing chess with her mother Charlotte, 'Lolita' strolled into the living room wearing a full length nightgown; Charlotte was worried - symbolically: "You're going to take my Queen!" He replied, expectedly: "That is my intention, certainly." Lolita leaned on the arm of his chair next to him, and then murmured: "G'night"; she kissed her mother on the cheek and then nuzzled cheek to cheek next to Humbert before leaving to go upstairs. Humbert immediately took Charlotte's Queen in his next move: "It had to happen sometime" - he quipped
• later in their backyard, Humbert slyly leered at Lolita over the top edge of the book he was pretending to read, as she practiced twirling a hula-hoop around her thrusting, pubescent hips while counting the rotations
• Lolita continually teased Humbert (unintentionally and intentionally), especially as she departed to go away to summer camp 200 miles away; he received a goodbye hug and half-kiss from Lolita in the upstairs hallway; she memorably told him farewell along with a half-wink: "Well, I guess I won't be seeing you again, huh?...Then I guess this is goodbye. Don't forget me." Soon after, to be near Charlotte's seductive child so that he could proceed with his nymphetomania, Humbert realized that he had to marry Charlotte
• Charlotte experienced an unexpected, accidental vehicular death; in celebration, Humbert took a hot bath and sipped from a martini glass floating on the water; Charlotte's untimely death meant widower Humbert became Lolita's legal guardian and stepfather
• Humbert drove the Haze station wagon to pick up Lolita from summer camp; the aptly-named camp sign welcomed him: "CAMP CLIMAX FOR GIRLS - Drive Carefully"; he was reluctant to tell Lolita the truth about her mother's death - but he confessed his love for the not-so-naive Lolita and she responded: "You haven't even kissed me yet, have you?"
• the film was noted for the scene of Humbert's overnight stay at a hotel with Lolita, where he willingly accepted the only room available for his planned 'seduction' - Room # 242 - "it's only got one bed." Although he contemplated crawling in bed with Lolita, he was resigned to sleeping alone on a rollaway cot
• in the early morning, the coquettish Lolita suggested playing a game that she learned at camp (whispered into his ear) from a boy named Charlie, while seductively twirling the hair on his head with her finger: ("I-I learned some real good games in camp. One in particular-ly was fun... Well, I played it with Charlie...He's that guy that you met in the office....You sure you can't guess what game I'm talking about?...You mean you never played that game when you were a kid?...All righty then...") -- her teasing was followed by a discrete fade to black (to blunt the story and please the censors)

Lolita's Suggestion to Play Game in Hotel Room

• four years later, Humbert saw Lolita once again after she had married and was six months pregnant - and in debt; Lolita had gone through "much sadness and hardship"; he greeted her: ("So this is what Mrs. Richard T. Schiller looks like!"); Humbert visited her to help support her financially; she was very unlike the sultry, sleek young girl he had remembered a few years earlier; she admitted to having had a continuing affair with another of the film's prominent characters, TV writer Clare Quilty, another pedophile; tragically, Lolita had been robbed of her childhood and youth by both Humbert's affections and Quilty's exploitative, sordid relationship with her
• Humbert made one final plea to rescue her from her shabby, bland existence in a hovel (with her superficial husband) and return to their own world of the past; when she denied his request, he cried and poignantly reached for over $400 in cash, a check for $2,500, and a mortgage document (from her mother's estate) worth about $10,000; Lolita was astonished and concerned: "You mean we're getting thirteen thousand dollars? Wonderful. Oh, come on now, don't cry. I'm sorry. Try to understand. I'm really sorry that I cheated so much, but I guess that's just the way things are"; afterwards, Humbert rushed for his car, as she called out from the door with the wad of cash in her hand: "Hey, well listen, let's keep in touch, huh? I'll write to you when we get to Alaska"
• driving away from Lolita's home in the fog, Humbert proceeded toward Quilty's mansion - he was insanely motivated to commit murder - a return to the prologue (now epilogue) in which Humbert called out: "Quilty, Quilty!" before the scene faded to black
• the ending shot in the epilogue - a second view of the watercolor painting of a young woman with a bullet hole through her face - was symbolic of the irrecoverably-marked life of Lolita; the epilogue's title card was displayed: "Humbert Humbert died of coronary thrombosis in prison awaiting trial for the murder of Claire Quilty."