Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1962-06-29
BY JAY CARMODY

1t was inevitable that Vladi-
mir Nabokov's Lolita" would
find her way to the screen.
The question was how"
As questions go, this one was
not really battling. From the
beginning, it was clear that the
cinema's Lolita would not, could
not, be the girl she was in the
original novel. She isn't. She
does, however, bear a family
resemblance to the little tempt
resS born in Nabokov's mock
ing, sophisticated mind in the
film which opened yesterday at
the Ontario theater.
For one thing, in the por-
trait by Sue Lyon. she is more
mature than the 12-year old
who taught Humbert Humbert
so much, tortured him so I'M
endurably, and left. worldly
readers Of the novel feeling
they were laughing at too many
wrong things. Moviegoers will
have a less uncomfortably
amused sense that they are see
ing conventional morality
turned inside out. They will
laugh, by no means wholesome
ly, but with a mite less of
shock at this reaction to the
sight Of worldliness being cor
rupted by what always has
been accepted as innocence.
Stanley Kubrick, one of Hol-
lywood's most daring explorers
Of odd, new worlds. is respon-
sible for the screens Lolita. %
He directed and co-wrote, with
Nabokov, the film at the On
tario.
Their combined effort to
transpose Lolita from words to
images may be described as
courageously discreet. They al
low her, a tender fleur de NAL,
to drive poor Humbert from
distraction to murder to death
by q heart attack. They per-
NIT her to play the lollypop
Lilith, the heroine Of a Sophis-
ticated horror comic.
In the process, they prove
themselves not immune to Lo-
lita's seductiveness. but still a
little more so than poor Hum
bert.
Nevertheless, as q shadow Of
her original wanton 12-year -old
self, she is an unusual heroine
on film. She Is the calm eye
of the emotional storm she
blows up, first in the boguSly
cultured home Of her widowed
youngish mother, then In a.
multitude of new settings to
which she flies with the be-
witched, middle-aged Humbert,
played by James Mason.
The narrative design Of the
picture, whose brightest mo-
ments are those Of Peter Sell
lers as GUILTY, is not to its ad-
vantage. To give his work the
memoir flavor Of the novel, Ku-
brick opens with a macabrely
comic scene in which the de-
mented Humbert kills GUILTY,
thus leaving the rest Of the
story to be told in a long, long
flashback.
Much Of this is merrily'
knocking - the aggressive pur-
suit Of Humbert by Los moth
er, the New England country
club dance, and especially the
bath tub sequence in which
Humbert learns he will not
have to kill his wife, and all
Of Sellers mad representations.
Yet, in difference to the
screens perilous explicitness, in
the areas where the novel was
most irreverently explicit, Ku-
brick must be abusive.
The brilliant performance of
the filmed Lolita" is that of
Sellers who captures the true
spirit Of Nabokov. Miss Lyon
who Is mostly symbol is prettily
that, and one supposes that
Shelley Winters is a close ap-
Proclamation of little Los hun
grily lonely mother.
How anyone could play a
plausible Humbert Humbert,
this reviewer does not know.
Neither apparently does Actor
Mason.