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Lolita Overview:

Lolita (1962) was a Drama - Romance Film directed by Stanley Kubrick and produced by James B. Harris and Eliot Hyman.

SYNOPSIS

The novel that remains an unquenchable controversy as adapted for the screen by its author, Nabokov. While the novel, though once banned, is accepted in most quarters as a masterpiece, this film version by Kubrick is hotly debated. A professor (Mason) who takes rooms in a widow's home conceives a distracting obsession with her teenage daughter, eventually marrying the grasping mother (Winters) in order to remain close to Lolita (Lyon). The triangle results in murder and humiliation. Lyon seems a bit too knowing as the object of obsession, and Sellers's Quilty seems to have dropped in on his way to Mars, but the overall effect is as absorbing and repellent as a slow-motion car crash. The 1998 remake by Adrian Lyne starring Jeremy Irons renewed the controversy with an even closer reading of the novel and its resultant inability to find a U.S. release until the Showtime cable network stepped forward.

(Source: available at Amazon AMC Classic Movie Companion).

Academy Awards 1962 --- Ceremony Number 35 (source: AMPAS)

AwardRecipientResult
Best WritingVladimir NabokovNominated

Lolita BlogHub Articles:

Debating Kubrick’s LOLITA (1962)

As my entry to The Great Movie Debate blogathon hosted by Citizen Screenings and The Cinematic Packrat I submit this debate on Stanley Kubrick’s LOLITA (1962). Note, before you continue, that I had the nerve to ask Joe of Nitrate Stock to go a round or two with me on this film. If you’re unawa... Read full article


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Lolita Quotes:

Charlotte Haze: [to Humbert] Oh, you MAN!

Clare Quilty: [looks at bullet hole] Gee... right in the boxing glove.

Clare Quilty: Listen, didn't you... didn't you have a daughter? Didn't you have a daughter with a lovely name? Yeah! A lovely... What was it now? A lovely, lyrical, lilting name, like, uh... uh...
Charlotte Haze: Lo-li-ta!
Clare Quilty: Lolita, that's right, Lolita. Diminutive of Dolores, "The Tears and the Roses."
Charlotte Haze: Wednesday she's going to have a cavity filled by your Uncle Ivor.
Clare Quilty: Yes. Hahahahaha... Yes.

Charlotte Haze: There's a nice view from this window... of the front lawn.
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Lolita Facts
Marlon Brando and David Niven were considered for the part of Humbert.

Errol Flynn was considered for Humbert Humbert, but died before the film was made.

Tuesday Weld was considered for the title role.

Vladimir Nabokov's original screenplay diverged greatly from the novel, but only a portion of it was used by Stanley Kubrick, even though Nabokov gets screen credit. Nabokov later published it as "Lolita: A Screenplay". The unused screenplay featured an Alfred Hitchcock-like cameo for Nabokov, who is referred to as "that nut with a butterfly net" (Nabokov was well known as an amateur lepidopterist). Although he generally admired the movie adaptation of his book, Nabokov regretted the waste of his time in writing a screenplay which was altered so drastically during filming.

The distinctive Flemish-Gothic spires of the Delaware & Hudson Building in Albany, New York can be seen in the background, as Humbert drives to Lolita's house near the end of the movie. This would indicate that she was living in or near the town Rensselaer.

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