This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

I was haunted by stories my grandpa told me about Lolita years before I first saw it, namely how nasty the movie was and how many loopholes the filmmakers had to jump through to get the pedicure scene past the censors. Even though the Hays Code was no longer powerful, there was still a sense of decency in 1962, and Lolita practically broke it.I'm not spoiling anything, by the way. The opening credits are shown over a closeup of Sue Lyon's toes. The first scene-the scenes are punctuated by lots of "suggestive" blackouts, so get used to them-is of an outraged, emotional James Mason who points a gun at a hungover Peter Sellars, who tries to talk and stall for time. Peter Sellars is so incredibly annoying, creepy, and disgusting, he pretty much ruins the movie. I learned later that his part wasn't initially so large, but that he kept ad-libbing and director Stanley Kubrick liked what he was doing so much he expanded his role. I wish he hadn't. I could probably have watched it a second time if it weren't for Peter Sellars. I beg you, if you've never seen him in a movie, don't rent Lolita yet. You will hate him the rest of your life. After the first scene, the movie goes back in time; I think the movie would have been stronger if it started after the first scene. Everyone's waiting to see Sue Lyon, and they'd get to see her that much sooner! Reportedly, about 800 girls auditioned for the title role. Sue was only fifteen years old when she filmed her scenes with the fifty-three-year-old James Mason; I wonder what her parents were thinking. There's so much interesting trivia about this movie and the initial casting choices; Cary Grant, Marlon Brando, Rex Harrison, Errol Flynn, David Niven, Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, and Charles Boyer were all offered the part before James Mason was freed from his Broadway commitments.Anyway, James Mason is looking to rent a room, and Shelley Winters nearly drowns in her sea of drool as she shows him the spare room in her house. He clearly isn't interested, in her or her room, but when she shows him the garden outside and he sees her daughter Sue Lyon in a bikini, he decides to become their new lodger. So starts an incredibly disgusting love triangle between mother, daughter, and lodger. James is a respectable author and professor, and with his sensitivity and restraint-yes, that word does apply to the first half of the movie-it's totally understandable why Sue would develop a crush on the handsome, older man. And Sue is so unbelievable beautiful, it's almost understandable why James loses his mind in his attraction to her. Obviously, if you're uncomfortable with this subject matter, you're not going to want to rent Lolita. And if you're just in the mood for a steamy good time, this isn't the movie for you. Maybe the remake has more steamy scenes, but this version of Lolita is much more involved in the psychological aspects of their relationship. Restraint and palpable tension are the overwhelming themes to the film, so be prepared if you rent it. Keep in mind it was made in 1962, and the mere fact that the film was made was a miracle, so there's no nudity or sex scenes that would be necessary for modern audiences.I like James Mason very much, and it's only because of my fondness for him that Lolita didn't ruin my opinion of him. If this was the first movie of his I'd seen, I probably wouldn't like him at all. There's no denying that he's a very handsome man and a very good actor, but his character is pretty unlikable. Yes, you feel sorry for him that he's dominated by inappropriate lust, but to Shelley, he acts like a jerk. Shelley doesn't do anything wrong; she falls in love with an available man her own age and gets treated unfairly. For example, she writes him a love letter and as he reads it aloud, he bursts out laughing. She's been given a very sympathetic character, and I'm sure your heart will go out to her in this film.If you really like James Mason and want to see one of his iconic films, go ahead and rent this one, but know what you're getting into. This is a heavy, psychological drama, not a steamy romance. He does a very good job, but the story is a bit disturbing, so it's not the type of movie you'll want to watch over and over again. But, at least you'll be able to say you've seen it. And you'll probably develop a fantasy of wanting James Mason to paint your toenails.Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. And just as obviously, since the entire movie involves an inappropriate sexual relationship with a minor, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.

I sat to watch Lolita for the third time. The first time I was too young to truly understand what I was seeing. Then I read the book a few years later and saw the film again. That time it left a mark. I detested James Mason's Humbert Humbert to such a degree that stopped me from accepting him in other roles other than utter villains. To see it now after two decades is a whole other story - All of a sudden James Mason's Humbert Humbert has become human, very human. Corrupt and haunted by the awareness of his own weakness. What a performance. Shelley Winters is superb, unafraid and bold bringing to life an embarrassing human spectacle. What a performance. Peter Sellers is chilling in all of his Quilty incarnations. Sue Lyon is sublime as the innocent torturer. Stanley Kubrick never made 2 films alike but I'm starting to suspect that as literary adaptations go, this is his finest.

The original Vladimir Nabokov novel caused no end of scandal by detailing the romance between a middle-aged intellectual and a 12-year-old nymphet. The affair is "cleansed" ever so slightly in the film by making Lolita a 15-year-old (portrayed by 16-year-old Sue Lyon). In adapting his novel to film, Nabokov downplayed the wicked satire and sensuality of the material, concentrating instead on the story's farcical aspects. James Mason plays professor Humbert Humbert, who while waiting to begin a teaching post in the United States rents a room from blowzy Shelley Winters. Winters immediately falls for the worldly Humbert, but he only has eyes for his landlady's nubile daughter Lolita. The professor goes so far as to marry Winters so that he can remain near to the object of his ardor. Turning up like a bad penny at every opportunity is smarmy TV writer Quilty (Peter Sellers), who seems inordinately interested in Humbert's behavior. When Winters happens to read Humbert's diary, she is so revolted by his lustful thoughts that she runs blindly into the street, where she is struck and killed by a car. Without telling Lolita that her mother is dead, Humbert packs her into the car and goes on a cross-country trip, dogged every inch of the way by a mysterious pursuer. Once she gets over the shock of her mother's death, Lolita is agreeable to inaugurating an affair with her stepfather (this is handled very, very discreetly, despite the slavering critical assessments of 1962). But when the girl begins discovering boys her own age, she drifts away from Humbert. One day, she leaves without warning. This is humiliation enough for Humbert; but when he discovers who her secret lover really is, the results are fatal. We are prepared for the ending because the film has been framed as a flashback; what we are not prepared for is Stanley Kubrick's adroit manipulation of our sympathies and expectations. An incredibly long film considering its subject matter, Lolita is never dull, nor does it ever stoop to the sensationalism prevalent in the film's ad campaign.

Stanley Kubrick's Lolita will for many (over 50 years on from its original release) seem safe and quite possibly routine. This though is simply not the case. At the time it was seen to be racy and in poor taste, so much so that the MPAA demanded that Kubrick made cuts to the film, otherwise they would deny him releasing it to the public. However, even with these restrictions in place Lolita works astoundingly well and even on many more levels if you try to view it with the mind-set of the general public in the 60s. Then it's all too obvious that Lolita is a daring project, beautiful to look at and yet remains a wonder that it ever saw the light of day at all.Humbert Humbert (James Mason) having recently entered America has moved into a house in Ramsdale residence of Mrs Haze. Originally only moving in so that he can become a college Professor - Humbert becomes undeniably infatuated by Mrs Haze's daughter; Lolita, oozing sexual confidence and spark. Who can blame him? Well other than the fact that he is in his fifties and she in this adaptation fourteen. So of course it is this area of the film that has sparked up controversy ever since 1962. The line "I'm going to take your Queen" possibly causing the most outrage – played over a game of chess. Though, the controversy of Lolita unlike 1971's A Clockwork Orange is hard to believe. In this day and age its relatively tame when compared to 1999's American Beauty a film that shares certain similarities with Lolita to say the least. Lolita for one has no nudity unless you count an underage girl clad in a revealing bikini and I for one don't. Any sexual references are low key and any moment proceeding intercourse is cut short. So you really have to play it out in your mind more than anything else. Though for me this is beneficiary to the picture, characterising Lolita's innocence, deep insecurity and tendency to shy away at the more intimate moments. Sue Lyon in her first role is positively enlightening. This is for sure a hard role to "get right". You have to know how to play the different characteristics of Lolita for a start and portray her vibrancy with the needed enthusiasm. But, Lyon handles it well, so well in fact that you'd swear she'd been in show business for a lifetime or at least a good handful of roles. James Mason on the other hand as Humbert Humbert is treading thin ice; yet, he manages to do the trick. The fact that we actually sympathise with a character this conniving and want to watch him on screen is a testament to Mason's staying power as an actor of rare talent, rarely seen nowadays, if at all. Peter Sellers as Claire Quilty is a different matter entirely and yes, I mean that as a compliment. Sellers just goes for it! Wacky, brilliant, witty and insane all these adjectives actually apply. But even the use of mere words cannot describe how funny he is in each situation, that's because Sellers understands what makes humour work. Edging the line between camp and utter silliness, Sellers is definitely a key factor as to why I adore Lolita so so very much.A picture like Lolita makes me look at films in an entirely different light. That wasn't a pun. Yet I must talk about the lighting. This is a film that is dazzling to view, and if you think that because its Black and White it cannot look this good, then I'm afraid you are sorely mistaken. Every shade of black and white is honestly a marvel and reminds me that splendid cinematography is about lighting, composition and framing, not different hues of a wide range of colours.Lolita is the sort of film Hollywood does not make anymore; witty, campy, fun, interesting, daring and never self-serious. This is a film without the glitz and glamour of Hollywood, before the advent of CGI, where characters took centre stage, not action or flashy special effects. Watching Kubrick's Lolita is like watching a by- gone age of cinema where story and characters were key to a film's success, not flashes of colour and the rising sound of a fireball. A+