SONS AND LOVERS (1960)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Jack Cardiff

SCREENWRITER: Gavin Lambert, T.E.B. Clarke

FILM STARS: Trevor Howard, Dean Stockwell, Wendy Hiller, Mary Ure, Heather Sears, Donald Pleasence.

COUNTRY: Great Britain

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: D.H. Lawrence

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Penguin

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1960

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1913

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Drama

WORDS: I haven’t read the book but the film is great. I’m sure the book is good, but I had to (forced to) read (other) Lawrence when I studied literature at Uni. It through me off a little. I was young, I wanted, modern, I wanted post war (well, at least post World War 1). I regret that. I later went on to read Dickens, James Fenimore Cooper, Sinclair and others and loved them. Still haven’t made it back to Lawrence.

Published in 1913 and, as per usual for Lawrence, followed by allegations of obscenity, the book is regarded as one of his best. Lawrence summarised the plot in a letter to Edward Garnett on 19 November 1912, “It follows this idea: a woman of character and refinement goes into the lower class, and has no satisfaction in her own life. She has had a passion for her husband, so her children are born of passion, and have heaps of vitality. But as her sons grow up she selects them as lovers – first the eldest, then the second. These sons are urged into life by their reciprocal love of their mother – urged on and on. But when they come to manhood, they can’t love, because their mother is the strongest power in their lives, and holds them. It’s rather like Goethe and his mother and Frau von Stein and Christiana – As soon as the young men come into contact with women, there’s a split. William gives his sex to a fritter, and his mother holds his soul. But the split kills him, because he doesn’t know where he is. The next son gets a woman who fights for his soul – fights his mother. The son loves his mother – all the sons hate and are jealous of the father. The conflict goes on between the mother and the girl with the son as object. The mother gradually proves stronger, because of the ties of blood. The son decides to leave his soul in his mother’s hands, and, like his elder brother go for passion. He gets passion. Then the split begins to tell again. But, almost unconsciously, the mother realises what is the matter, and begins to die. The son casts off his mistress, attends to his mother dying. He is left in the end naked of everything, with the drift towards death”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sons_and_Lovers .

The film was stark and uncompromising for its time. Dean Stockwell (much underrated) was great and Trevor Howard was … magnificent (all modern British actors are rubbish compared to him). Howard, in a sizeable role, lifted average films to something better than they were. In a film with quality antecedents like he added tenfold. Both he and Mary Ure were nominated for Oscars. The film was nominated for seven Academy Awards(including best Actor (Howard), Best Supporting Actress (Ure), Best Director, and Best Picture) winning one for Best Cinematography.

Jack Cardiff said, apparently, “The films that I am most proud of – the film, for instance, that I made under great difficulty, Sons and Lovers (1960), I wanted to make it into a good film because the book is marvellous, and I didn’t want to let the author down”. https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002153/bio?ref_=nm_ov_bio_sm.

Director Cardiff was a great cinematographer (The Vikings (1958), Legend of the Lost (1957), The Prince and the Showgirl (1957), War and Peace (1956), The African Queen (1951), 1The Magic Box (1951), Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951), The Black Rose (1950), The Red Shoes (1948), Black Narcissus (1947), and Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), Conan the Destroyer (1984), The Awakening (1980), Death on the Nile (1978), Scalawag (1973)) and an interesting director (Young Cassidy (1965), The Long Ships (1964), The Mercenaries (aka Dark of the Sun)(1968), The Liquidator (1968)) though I suspect much credit should go to the producer, American Jerry Wald, who was an expert at these sorts of family melodramas (Wild in the Country (1961), Return to Peyton Place (1961), Hound-Dog Man (1959), Infidel (1959), The Best of Everything (1959), The Sound and the Fury (1959), Mardi Gras (1958), The Long, Hot Summer (1958), Peyton Place (1957), An Affair to Remember (1957), Queen Bee (1955), The Lusty Men (1952), The Glass Menagerie (1950)).

This is a superior family drama, kitchen sink style.

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