Lolita is a 1962 black comedy-psychological drama film[9] directed by Stanley Kubrick, based on the 1955 novel of the same name by Vladimir Nabokov.

Owing to restrictions imposed by the Motion Picture Production Code (1934–68), the film toned down the most provocative aspects, sometimes leaving much to the audience's imagination.

Lolita polarized contemporary critics with its theme of child sexual abuse but was nominated for Best Adapted Screenplay at the 35th Academy Awards.

Years after its release, Kubrick expressed doubt that he would have attempted to make the film had he fully understood how severe the censorship limitations on it would be.

After the Hazes depart for camp, the maid gives Humbert a letter from Charlotte, confessing her love for him and demanding that he vacate at once unless he feels the same way.

While attending a performance of the play, Humbert learns that Dolores has been lying about how she was spending her Saturday afternoons when she claimed to be at piano practice.

Stanley Kubrick and James Harris acquired the right to Vladimir Nabokov's Lolita, a novel considered unfilmable, several years after it was first published in September 1955 in Paris by Maurice Girodias' Olympia Press, which specialized in pornographic literature.

London Sunday Express editor John Gordon, in response to Greene, called it "the filthiest book I have ever read" and "sheer unrestrained pornography".

[11] Kubrick was hired by Kirk Douglas to replace director Anthony Mann on the epic Spartacus; he and Harris didn't put Lolita into production until 1960.

[12] The second half contains an odyssey across the United States and though the novel was set in the 1940s, Kubrick gave it a contemporary setting, shooting many of the exterior scenes in England with some back-projected scenery shot in the United States, including upstate eastern New York, along NY 9N in the eastern Adirondacks, and a hilltop view of Albany from Rensselaer, on the east bank of the Hudson.

[citation needed] Some of the minor parts were played by Canadian and American actors, such as Cec Linder, Lois Maxwell, Jerry Stovin and Diana Decker, who were based in England at the time.

Harris suggested David Niven, who accepted the part but withdrew for fear that the sponsors of his TV show, Four Star Playhouse (1952), would object to the subject matter.

[citation needed] The role of Clare Quilty was greatly expanded from that in the novel and Kubrick allowed Sellers to adopt a variety of disguises throughout the film.

[19] Producer James Harris explained that 14-year-old Sue Lyon, who looked older than her age, was cast because "we knew we must make [Lolita] a sex object [...] where everyone in the audience could understand why everyone would want to jump on her.

"[21] Harris said that he and Kubrick, through casting, changed Nabokov's book as "we wanted it to come off as a love story and to feel very sympathetic with Humbert.

"[12] Kubrick hinted at the nature of their relationship indirectly, through double entendre and visual cues such as Humbert painting Lolita's toes.

In a 1972 Newsweek interview (after the ratings system had been introduced in late 1968), Kubrick said that he "probably wouldn't have made the film" had he realized in advance how difficult the censorship problems would be.

Kubrick commented, "I think that some people had the mental picture of a nine-year-old, but Lolita was twelve and a half in the book; Sue Lyon was thirteen."

[24] Although passed without cuts, Lolita was rated "X" by the British Board of Film Censors when released in 1962, meaning no one under 16 years of age was permitted to watch.

[30] The flip side was a 60s-style light rock song called "Turn off the Moon" penned by Harris and Al Stillman and also sung by Sue Lyon.

[31] A review in Billboard stated, "There've been a number of versions of the title tune from the hit film Lolita but this figures the strongest to date.

It performed fairly well with little advertising, relying mostly on word-of-mouth; many critics seemed uninterested or dismissive of the film while others gave it glowing reviews.

[33][34] Among the positive reviews, Bosley Crowther of The New York Times wrote that the film was "conspicuously different" from the novel and had "some strange confusions of style and mood", but nevertheless had "a rare power, a garbled but often moving push toward an off-beat communication.

"[35] Richard L. Coe of The Washington Post called it "a peculiarly brilliant film", with a tone "not of hatred, but of mocking true.

"[38] In a generally positive review for The New Yorker, Brendan Gill wrote that "Kubrick is wonderfully self-confident; his camera having conveyed to us within the first five minutes that it can perform any wonders its master may require of it, he proceeds to offer us a succession of scenes broadly sketched and broadly acted for laughs, and laugh we do, no matter how morbid the circumstances.

She found Nabokov's screenplay "a model of adaptation" and the cast "near-perfect", though she described Kubrick's attempts at eroticism as "perfunctory and misguided" and thought his "gift for visual comedy is as faint as his depiction of sensuality.

"[40] Variety had a mixed assessment, calling the film "occasionally amusing but shapeless", and likening it to "a bee from which the stinger has been removed.

It still buzzes with a sort of promising irreverence, but it lacks the power to shock and eventually makes very little point either as comedy or satire.

The critical consensus reads: "Kubrick's Lolita adapts its seemingly unadaptable source material with a sly comedic touch and a sterling performance by James Mason that transforms the controversial novel into something refreshingly new without sacrificing its essential edge.

I defy any pretty girl who is rocketed to stardom at 14 in a sex nymphet role to stay on a level path thereafter.Lolita was filmed again in 1997, directed by Adrian Lyne, starring Jeremy Irons as Humbert, Melanie Griffith as Charlotte and Dominique Swain as Lolita.