Based on Vladimir Nabokov’s novel, director Stanley Kubrick’s 1962 hotbed of pedophilia was shredded by the censors for its depiction of newly-pubescent girl/stinky old man love that would barely rate an eyebatting by today’s pornographic standards. Poor Humbert Humbert (James Mason) just can’t help himself when Lolita (Sue Lyon) spins her hula hoop—effectively making his downfall entirely her fault for not being a pudgy wall flower. Poor Dolores (Shelley Winters), Lolita’s mother, gets caught up in Humbert’s nasty web of deceit and suffers a wet, pitiable demise. And poor Clare Quilty (Peter Sellers) is likewise undone by the naughty nymph, who, we realize by pictures end, had just been suffering through a bitchy teenage tantrum and is now all married and respectable and stuff. Suckers.
Sun., July 1; Mon., July 2; Thu., July 5, 2012
