THE years have not been kind to Lady Chatterley. Nor for that matter have the movies. Scandalous in her day, the sexual adventuress of DH Lawrence's best-known novel has matured into something of a pop-culture joke, remembered less as a symbol of erotic liberation than a soft-core staple of late-night television.
Notwithstanding an early, relatively staid 1955 French adaptation, starring Danielle Darrieux and made while the book was still contraband in Britain, film versions of Lady Chatterley's Lover have favoured the heavy-breathing, bodice-busting approach to period romance. Ken Russell, who had successfully tackled Lawrence with his film Women in Love in 1969, directed a sudsy Chatterley miniseries for the BBC in 1993. Trashier still was a 1981 version that featured Sylvia Kristel, the leggy star of the popular Emmanuelle films.
There have been Japanese and Italian renditions; the 1970s soft-core craze even produced a contemporary spin-off, Young Lady Chatterley. THE years have not been kind to Lady Chatterley.
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