Sons and Lovers

Fox Archives offers disappointing transfer
First off, five stars for the film, even though its handling of Lawrence's novel is hamstrung by the restraints of the times (and MPAA). That said, the transfer in this no-frills Fox Archives edition is lackluster. This was one of the best photographed of all black-and-white CinemaScope films, and it's very drab here, only slightly better than downloads I've seen of the Australian version. Fox has transferred the film to a single-layer DVD disc of 4 GB, simply not enough to capture the nuances of the cinematography of Freddie Francis. I suppose it's better than nothing, but it is a shame Fox didn't exercise a little more care with this multiple Oscar nominated film. As noted recently in reviews of Fox Archives offerings in the New York Times, the Fox series is very uneven, with some transfers far better than expected and others pretty awful. This one falls close to the latter category.

SONS AND LOVERS -- A GREAT MOVIE
Sons and Lovers is a semi-autobiographical novel set in a coal-mining community near Nottingham, England in the early 20th century. D.H. Lawrence wrote the book but Jack Cardiff, an amazing cine-photographer directed it in 1960 with a great cast -- Trevor Howard and Wendy Hiller as the parents and Dean Stockwell as Paul. The book covers the lives of the parents, their loves and losses, but the movie cuts in when son Paul Morel is an adolescent, torn between love for his mother and two young women. You can almost feel the dust and the grime of coal combined with a gritty, frustrating, but nevertheless appealing and passionate story. Black and white makes it all the more appealing. The DVD is PAL (Australia)but you can get conversion software. Surprise, it played on my Toshiba laptop in the U.S. without downloading software. For D.H. Lawrence and Jack Cardiff followers its worth the effort. Why it is not available yet in the U.S. on NTSC format is a real puzzle because the movie is a...

JACK CARDIFF, OPUS 4
**** 1960. Based on D.H. Lawrence's Sons and Lovers (Modern Library Classics) and directed by Jack Cardiff. Academy award earned by Freddie Francis (Best B&W Cinematography) and Golden Globe by Jack Cardiff (Best Director). A young man is torn between his possessive mother and his well-behaved girl-friend. He'll finally find sexual fullfilment in the arms of a married woman. This film is a very good adaptation of D.H. Lawrence novel, the director and the actors managing perfectly to create a palpable sexual tension by means of the musical score, visual metaphors, suggestive gazes and body movements. Highly recommended.

Another cinematographical version of this novel is available here: A TV movie directed by Stephen Whittaker in 2003 Sons & Lovers.

If you own a multi-zone DVD player, be aware that you can also find a zone...

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