She was trapped in a loveless marriage. He was her husband’s servant.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover movie storyline. This adaptation of D. H. Lawrence’s novel Lady Chatterly’s Lover stars Sylvia Kristel as Constance Chatterly, the young wife of an emotionally distant aristocrat in 1910’s England, who becomes only less accessible to his spouse when he loses the use of his legs in World War I.
He gives her leave to take up a lover, but when Constance turns to the bed of the low-born groundskeeper, Mellors (Nicholas Clay), she not only discovers what passionate lovemaking is really like, but also experiences actual intimacy and love for the first time, leading to a dramatic love triangle, and a bevy of subtext about classism and emotional freedome.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover is a 1981 film directed by Just Jaeckin, and starring Sylvia Kristel, Shane Briant, Nicholas Clay, Ann Mitchell, Elizabeth Spriggs, Pascale Rivault, Peter Bennett, Anthony Head, Bessie Love, Michael Huston, Fran Hunter and Michael Ryan. It is an adaptation of D. H. Lawrence’s 1928 novel of the same name. The film was theatrically released on May 7, 1982 in United States.
About the Story
After a Great War injury leaves her husband Sir Clifford Chatterley impotent and crippled, his new wife, Constance Chatterley (called Connie) is torn between love for her husband and her own sensual desires. With her husband’s consent, even encouragement, even to the point of bearing him an heir, she is open to means of fulfilling her physical needs.
She clandestinely observes their gamekeeper, Oliver Mellors, washing himself at his hut, and is immediately attracted, and uses that image to masturbate in bed that very evening. As she later approaches him at his hut openly, he shows disdain for her prying, due to class differences, he being a common laborer, and she a middling aristocrat.
A later visit to his hut, ostensibly to view newly hatched birds, she sobs at their condition, and Mellors gently takes her in his arms, whereupon they begin a physical relationship. The physical affair between Connie and Mellors grows into love, and they both desire that she should have his child. Gradually, Sir Clifford begins to suspect the affair.
After several more clandestine copulations, the lovers agree that Connie should spend an entire night at his cottage. So she does, and it is on this night that Clifford painfully pulls himself to her upstairs bedroom, only to find an empty bed. When Connie returns to the mansion at daybreak, Sir Clifford awaits her. He is shocked and angry that his wife should descend to bedding a member of the lower classes.
Lady Chatterley’s Lover (1982)
Directed by: Just Jaeckin
Starring: Sylvia Kristel, Shane Briant, Nicholas Clay, Ann Mitchell, Elizabeth Spriggs, Pascale Rivault, Peter Bennett, Anthony Head, Bessie Love, Michael Huston, Fran Hunter, Michael Ryan
Screenplay by: Marc Behm, Just Jaeckin, Christopher Wicking
Production Design by: Anton Furst
Cinematography by: Robert Fraisse
Film Editing by: Eunice Mountjoy
Costume Design by: Shirley Russell
Set Decoration by: Bryony Foster
Music by: Richard Harvey, Stanley Myers
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Cannon Films (U.S.), Columbia Pictures (Non-U.S.)
Release Date: May 7, 1982 (USA)
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