The other day, I woke up early and found the Just Jaeckin-Sylvia Kristel version of "Lady Chatterley's Lover" on a premium cable tv channel. And I decided to have breakfast while watching this rarity. This movie was made in 1981 by the notorious Cannon Group, a movie studio from way back headed by the hack team of Golan and Globus. They were heavily into exploitation movies such as the "Death Wish" sequels. And once in a while they would try to come up with a prestige movie that ended up being worse than their cheap, violence filled movies.
But maybe "Lady Chatterley's Lover" is not that bad, as compared to other versions of the novel. They all have that "this is serious literature" attitude. But the fact is that the novel, which is a serious study of human sexuality, involves a lot of the character's thoughts and feelings. And movies are not so great doing that, so invariably movies based on this novel end up being "Woman is married to impotent cripple. Woman fucks gardener." The wonderful DH Lawrence prose is gone.
Anyway, I enjoyed it, I must admit. Shane Bryant is pretty good as Clifford and Sylvia Kristel is actually not so bad as Lady Chatterley. Her nude scenes, especially remind one, that she was a true beauty. No implants or surgery.
So, if you wake up early one of these days, give it a shot. Or Take advantage of your DVR and record it.
By the way, a piece I wrote on Sylvia Kristel two years ago is the most visited page in my blog. So it will be interesting to see how this piece does.
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