Customer Reviews

Sons & Lovers [ NON-USA FORMAT, PAL, Reg.0 Import - Australia ]

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Sons and Lovers is a semi-autobiographical novel set in a coal-mining community near Nottingham, England in the early 20th century. D.H. Lawrence wrote the book but Jack Cardiff, an amazing cine-photographer directed it in 1960 with a great cast -- Trevor Howard and Wendy Hiller as the parents and Dean Stockwell as Paul. The book covers the lives of the parents, their loves and losses, but the movie cuts in when son Paul Morel is an adolescent, torn between love for his mother and two young women. You can almost feel the dust and the grime of coal combined with a gritty, frustrating, but nevertheless appealing and passionate story. Black and white makes it all the more appealing. The DVD is PAL (Australia)but you can get conversion software. Surprise, it played on my Toshiba laptop in the U.S. without downloading software. For D.H. Lawrence and Jack Cardiff followers its worth the effort. Why it is not available yet in the U.S. on NTSC format is a real puzzle because the movie is a real literary, historic and cinematic gem, and like a good book, worth repeating. Amazon should push for an NTSC version so that everyone, including students of history can view this movie.

**** 1960. Based on D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers (Modern Library Classics) and directed by Jack Cardiff. Academy award earned by Freddie Francis (Best B&W Cinematography) and Golden Globe by Jack Cardiff (Best Director). A young man is torn between his possessive mother and his well-behaved girl-friend. He'll finally find sexual fullfilment in the arms of a married woman. This film is a very good adaptation of D.H. Lawrence novel, the director and the actors managing perfectly to create a palpable sexual tension by means of the musical score, visual metaphors, suggestive gazes and body movements. Highly recommended.

Another cinematographical version of this novel is available here: A TV movie directed by Stephen Whittaker in 2003 Sons & Lovers.

If you own a multi-zone DVD player, be aware that you can also find a zone 2 DVD of SONS AND LOVERS at Amazon.co.uk and Amazon.fr.

Sons and Lovers is D.H. Lawrence's story of a boy named Paul (Dean Stockwell) who lives in a mining town at the turn of the century. His mother (Wendy Hiller) wants the best for him, despite the animosity between her husband and her favorite son. Paul wants to be an artist, and he gets his chance when a collector offers to take him to London. However, the apron strings are too tight, and Paul loves a local girl named Miriam (Heather Sears). He stays behind, but he makes an attempt to find himself and to "be free." He gets a job and meets a married woman (Mary Ure) who teaches him a thing or two about love and true freedom.

The real reason to watch this movie is not because of Lawrence and the steamy relationships in the story, but for the gorgeous and talented Stockwell. His presence is magnetic and his youth makes him perfect for the thoughtful and tormented character.

Yes, there is sex in this movie, but nothing graphic like in today's films. One of the best scenes is when Paul and Mrs. Dawes are in her house where she lives with her mother waiting for their chance to be together. You might find yourself holding your breath in anticipation, feeling just as tense as the characters on screen.

An aspiring painter (Dean Stockwell) in a small mining village becomes a battle zone for his rough-hewn miner father (Trevor Howard) who doesn't think much of his son's aspirations and his delicate mother (Wendy Hiller), who he's emotionally over attached to and who encourages him to better himself. Based on the acclaimed D.H. Lawrence novel, the film leaves much of the novel out (about a third) which is understandable and focuses on Stockwell's character rather than on the other son played by William Lucas who has a more important role in the novel. All things considered, it's still a powerful film with terrific performances by Howard and Hiller. Their scenes together crackle with a spellbinding intensity. Stockwell's accent is barely adequate but other than that, he brings a quiet intensity as the Lawrence stand in. The B&W cinematography by Freddie Francis is exquisite and earned him a justified Oscar. The effective score is by Mario Nascimbene. With Mary Ure, quite good in an Oscar nominated performance, as the married feminist who has an affair with Stockwell, Heather Sears (ROOM AT THE TOP) as the good girl, Donald Pleasence, Rosalie Crutchley and Ernest Thesiger.

The Australian DVD courtesy of Umbrella entertainment is an excellent anamorphic transfer in its original CinemaScope ratio (2.35).

It is difficult to decide which version of SONS AND LOVERS is superior -- this black-and-white version directed by award-winning Jack Cardiff and featuring stunning and stark imagery created by Freddie Francis or the excellent BBC version which stretches out to three and one half hours in order to capture more of the story of the original D. H. Lawrence novel.

SONS AND LOVERS is probably Lawrence's best novel, one that I cannot ignore whenever I teach a British literature course -- either in the US or here in China. It is required reading, even though WOMEN IN LOVE comes awfully darn close as a novel about real passions and as a daring film by Ken Russell. Trying to choose between the Jack Cardiff black-and-white film (some students, unfortunately, are turned off in this day and age by films shot in black-and-white, causing them to under-value some of the greatest motion pictures ever made -- such as CITIZEN KANE) and in the in-color BBC version with Rupert Evans and Susan Lancashire is incredibly difficult. When it comes to selecting one version or the other for the classroom, the full-frontal nudity of the BBC version and its much-longer running time makes the choice easier -- even for postgraduate students who, in China, are often more like high school students in their exposure to sensuality on the screen and in their "traditional" approach to relationships and sexual inter-actions. I choose this 1960 black-and-white version for these two reasons. However, given the superior directing and lensing of this version, and the acting of two brilliant British thespians Trevor Howard and Wendy Hiller and the equally accomplished American actor Dean Stockwell, I have nothing to apologize for.

SONS AND LOVERS (1960), which would be rivaled only by THE INNOCENTS (1961) with regards to wide-screen black-and-white cinematography, is a superb production in every aspect. The camera focuses intently on the eyes of Stockwell and lovingly on the bare shoulders of the lovely Mary Ure -- who will always be, in my own eyes, the only Mrs. Dawes -- as well as on the wheels and pulleys of the coal mining equipment shown in sharp relief against the gray sky. These images capture the sharp dichotomy of the novel and the film -- the passions shown in contrast to the stark background of the novel's setting. We can forgive Cardiff and Francie for filming in black-and-white and eschewing some of the color descriptions in Lawrence's novel.

For an in-depth comparison of this black-and-white film and Lawrence's novel, read Louis K. Grieff's excellent article "SONS AND LOVERS: Flight from the [S]mothering Text" found in his book D. H. LAWRENCE: FIFTY YEARS ON FILM (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2001) or as anthologized in D.H. LAWRENCE'S SONS AND LOVERS: A CASEBOOK, edited by John Worthen and Andrew Harrison and published by Oxford University Press. I won't try to compete with his article but will merely recommend it.

When I showed this film to a college class in Atlanta, my students commented that Trevor Howard played Walter Morel as a humorous man, as more sympathetic than described in the novel. They were also impressed that Wendy Hiller mentions the word "bobbie-dazzler" as does Gertrude in the book. Wendy Hiller not only speaks Lawrence's lines in the film but, more importantly, expresses what words cannot by the tone of her voice when she reacts to her son's (Stockwell's) comments about Miriam (Heather Sears), the distasteful expression in her face when she sees that Miriam had been invited to the exhibit which features one of Paul's works of art, the pouty look of her lips when she speaks to William (the older son) and Paul. Hiller's unique profile is emphasized by Francis' camera in the scene where she says good-bye to the son who is returning to London. She may feel that she is getting old, as she tells Paul early in the film, but that profile is as ageless and as stunning as a stone figure on Mount Rushmore.

When it comes to profiles, however, Heather Sears' pixie-like countenance is none too shabby. We see her child-like timidity in ROOM AT THE TOP and Hammer's version of PHANTOM OF THE OPERA, but here the shock and fear on her face when Paul (Stockwell) tells her that he does not want to go inside, hinting at his carnal intentions, is priceless. I am in no way a prude and opposed to sex being shown on the screen, but perhaps the fact that the coupling between the two young lovers is not shown is preferable to the sexual intercourse sequences between Paul and Miriam that are emphasized in the BBC version -- sequences that are uncomfortable to watch because of the obvious pain that Paul's thrusting causes her. In the Cardiff theatrical version, Paul merely mentions, after their experience, that Miriam closed her eyes and clenched her fist during their first intimate connecting. We are told as beginning writers to show and not tell, but in this case -- perhaps because of Stockwell's delivery -- telling works just as well. We have seen enough of Miriam's personality as shown in Sears' performance to have, in our minds, a vision of what her first time must have been like.

SONS AND LOVERS is obviously a film worth seeing, and, if you are literature teacher or professor, worth showing after students have read and, hopefully, digested the novel. Perhaps my own family background causes me to appreciate the novel and the film more than others since I grew up with a father who was a non-abusive alcoholic and a mother who was similar to Miriam's mother in the film -- bitter, angry, and sexually repressed. I have noticed, particularly when showing the film in America, other victims of dysfunctional families sitting in the classroom. This is a topic I have tried to address in a couple of my own novels, but Lawrence and these two versions of his novel handle this sensitive issue masterfully. SONS AND LOVERS is a wonderful revelation of what it must be like to grow up in a coal mining community and to live in a stifling environment with an overly protective mother who, with deft subtlety, crosses the boundaries between mother and lover, as well as a father who believes that he has to act low because he is thought to be low. Many Chinese students who come from a rural environment or farming community can understand the setting and its restrictions but those of us who are ACOAs (Adult Children of Alcoholics) can see much more in the faces of the characters.

As of this writing, the only DVD version of this 1960 film is available in a non-USA import format, viewable in the States by those who have a multi-region DVD player. Let's hope that this situation changes ASAP.