Rent Sons and Lovers (1960)

Period drama. - Sons and Lovers review by Steve

Simplified and condensed version of DH Lawrence's epic autobiographical novel directed by legendary cameraman Jack Cardiff. Stripped of the author's prose, this is quite a conventional historical saga of a working class boy from a Nottinghamshire coalfield who cannot find artistic or sexual freedom within the confines of his class.

It's a domestic drama with American Dean Stockwell playing the angry young man as a kind of Edwardian James Dean. The acting is generally strong, with Trevor Howard as the father, a crude, drunken miner, and particularly Wendy Hiller as the suffering mother who finds comfort through her cultured, brooding child.

Its main virtue is the stark black and white photography of grimy Nottinghamshire mining towns, shot around the pit where Lawrence grew up. It was a big box office hit, maybe because there was a vogue for working class realism when released, and for stories about conflict between generations. And it's quite sexually frank for the period.

The script is uninspired, but most aspects of the production are fine. It's a well made and entertaining literary adaptation, but Cardiff doesn't create anything perceptive or enduring out of his material. It's surprising that it was nominated for seven Oscars, though not that it actually won for the cinematography.