Lady Chatterley’s Lover * (1981, Sylvia Kristel, Nicholas Clay, Shane Briant) – Classic Movie Review 8906

Director Just Jaeckin’s 1981 soft-core sex film Lady Chatterley’s Lover is the first English language version of D H Lawrence’s infamous novel, with Emmanuelle star Sylvia Kristel as the sexually frustrated Lady Constance Chatterley in a dysfunctional marriage but enjoying an extra-marital adulterous affair with chunky gardener Oliver Mellors (Nicholas Clay), a man well below her class. It is produced by Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan of Cannon Films.

In typical soft-core fashion, the film tries to create eroticism through soft-focus lighting, unfortunately a poor attempt to compensate for the film’s lack of passion, though there is no lack of nudity. The two stars are ill cast and ill at ease, though Clay makes a much better shot of it than the forlorn Kristel or Shane Briant as her crippled, impotent husband, Sir Clifford Chatterley.

Even the usually reliable support acting is below par. But at least both of the handsome star players look right for their parts.

Also in the cast are Ann Mitchell, Elizabeth Spriggs, Peter Bennett, Bessie Love, Anthony Head, and Pascale Rivault.

There are five sex scenes, filmed frankly with extended full body shots. In three of these scenes, the actors are nude. The film features extensive female frontal nudity and male nudity, earning it an X certificate original rating and 18 certificate video rating in the UK. Unfortunately for the actors, the love scenes were filmed  during a freezing English winter, no doubt damping their ardour.

Lady Chatterley’s Lover is directed by Just Jaeckin, runs 107 minutes is made by Cine Artist Film GmbH, Cine-Source, London-Cannon Films and Les Producteurs Associées, is released by Cannon Film Distributors (1982) (US) and Columbia-EMI-Warner (1981) (UK), is written by Marc Behm, Christopher Wicking and Just Jaeckin, based on D H Lawrence’s novel, is shot by Robert Fraisse, is produced by Yoram Globus (executive producer), Menahem Golan (executive producer), André Djaoui and Christopher Pearce, is scored by Stanley Myers and Richard Harvey and is designed by Anton Furst.

It follows director Marc Allégret’s 1955 French adaptation Lady Chatterley’s Lover [L’Amant de Lady Chatterley], with Danielle Darrieux. It is remade as the BBC TV serial Lady Chatterley by Ken Russell in 1993 with Joely Richardson, Sean Bean and James Wilby, and again as the 2015 TV movie Lady Chatterley’s Lover with Holliday Grainger, Richard Madden and James Norton.

Jaeckin and Kristel previously made Emmanuelle together.

Nicholas Clay is best known for Excalibur (1981), Evil Under the Sun (1982) and the TV Mini-Series Merlin (1998). He died on 25 May 2000 in London, aged 53.

Briant has appeared in 32 features, notably The Picture of Dorian Gray (1973), The MacKintosh Man (1973). The Naked Civil Servant (1975), and The Lighthorsemen (1987).

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8906

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