L'Amant De Lady Chatterley (aka Lady Chatterley's Lover) (1955)

The faithful wife (Danielle Darrieux) to her war wounded paraplegic husband (Leo Genn), whose fortune flows from a local coal mine, seems unconcerned about her loss of sexual fulfillment. This changes when she crosses the path of the estate's new gamekeeper (Erno Crisa). Based on the controversial 1928 novel by D.H. Lawrence and directed by Marc Allegret (PLUCKING THE DAISY). As a film, this was as controversial as Lawrence's source material (which was banned for obscenity in the U.S., Canada, Japan, Australia and India). The film was banned in New York for obscenity until 1959 when the Supreme Court reversed the ban. Controversy aside, how is the movie? Very good adaptation I thought. I can see how in 1955, the film was considered "obscene". The sexual relationship in the film is frank and unapologetic which was anathema to uptight audiences of the 1950s. Darrieux makes for an exquisite Lady Chatterley, Genn a perfectly repugnant Lord Chatterley with only Crisa's gamekeeper lacking. Since it's no longer "controversial", today's viewers can concentrate on the class distinctions which make the relationship untenable to its closed society. It's not the adultery, it's who's she's sleeping with. With Berthe Tissen and Janine Crispin.