Excellent Screen Adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's "Sons and Lovers"

The very faithful adaptation of D. H. Lawrence's relatively autobiograpichal 1913 novel Sons and Lovers (directed by Jack Cardiff, 1960) has great performances by Trevor Howard as a gruff miner, Walter Morel, Wendy Hiller as his wife, Gertrud, and Dean Stockwell as Paul Morel, a sensitive Mama's boy smothered by his mother, resenting his father, and unable to get out or attain love with either the devoted Miriam (Heather Sears) or the experienced Mrs. Dawes (Mary Ure) who is a suffragette separated from her husband but connected to him in the same mystifying (carnal) way Paul's parents are.

The splendid cinematography (with particularly notable shots of Paul and Mrs. Dawes cavorting on a wintry seashore) by Freddie Francis (Room at the Top, Glory) won an Oscar. (Howard, Ure, Cardiff, the screenwriters, art decoration, and the movie were all nominated, and Cardiff won a Golden Globe and a New York film Critics award for his direction; Hiller was passed over for American award consideration, though nominated for a BAFTA).

Cardiff who had lenses some of the great Michael Powell/Emeric Pressburger movies (winning an Oscar for "Black Narcissus") and John Huston's "African Queen" went on to direct one of the worst movies ever made (Girl on a Motorcycle) and then returned to where his talent lay. He died in 2009. The movie should be released in a wide-screen edition on DVD (and Stockwell is still around to talk about the making of the movie).