SUE LYON IN STANLEY KUBRICK'S 'LOLITA' WITH JAMES MASON

LOLITA Year: 1962 Rating: ****1/2

Between Stanley Kubrick's financial gig on Kirk Douglas's epic SPARTACUS and the immense Cold War dark comedy DR. STRANGELOVE is the subtle yet brilliant LOLITA, perhaps his most conventionally filmed and least visually offbeat since the storyline takes care of all that... 

Middle-aged British college professor James Mason falls for the titular Sue Lyon, whose mom, Shelley Winters, bounces around a suburban East Coast dream house, stealing all the first act scenes in what feels like a short film in itself... 

And she's even more frantically smitten with Mason's Humbert than he surreptitiously lusts for her young-teen daughter, whose beauty alone is pure seduction as Lyon, with full lips just evolved from a playfully puffy, baby-face scowl has wide yet sharpened eyes guiding this literal performance of a lifetime (she had just played a teen seductress on Loretta Young's anthology series),: a sensually timeless time-capsule of devilish chaste enveloped in what eventually becomes Kubrick's very own road movie wherein lurks hilariously shady antagonist Peter Sellers who, like in STRANGELOVE, portrays a number of roles but in one man... playwright Clare Quilty... out to snake the girl from desperate step dad Mason, whose guilt, greed, vengeance and rage has already overpowered him during a framed prologue showdown between Brits: making Lyon's LOLITA not only the anticipated lead, but what everything leads to, means, and completely matters throughout.

Marianne Stone with Peter Sellers and Sue Lyon in Stanley Kubricks LOLITA

Sue Lyon and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Shelley Winters in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Sue Lyon and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA with Bill Greene

Sue Lyon and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Peter Sellers in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA with James Mason

Sue Lyon and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Sue Lyon and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Sue Lyon and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Sue Lyon and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Sue Lyon and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Peter Sellers in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA with Marianne Stone

Shirley Douglas and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Sue Lyon and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Sue Lyon as Lolita in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Sue Lyon and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA with Gary Cockrell

James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA with Shelley Winters

Sue Lyon and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA with Shelley Winters

Sue Lyon and James Mason in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA with Shelley Winters

Sue Lyon as Lolita in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Sue Lyon as Lolita in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA "Cha Cha Cha"

Sue Lyon as Lolita in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA with Shelley Winters

Sue Lyon as Lolita in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Sue Lyon as Lolita in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Sue Lyon as Lolita in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Sue Lyon as Lolita in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

From the beginning-ending frame story of Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

James Mason and Sue Lyon in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

James Mason and Sue Lyon in Stanley Kubrick's LOLITA

Sue Lyon on The Loretta Young Show and LOLITA

Kubrick actors Jerry Stovin and William Sylvester on The Saint: The Happy Suicide

Diana Decker, Shelley Winters, Jerry Stovin and James  Mason in LOLITA

Lois Maxwell in LOLITA