CAST: Trevor Howard (Walter Morel), Dean Stockwell (Paul Morel), Wendy Hiller (Mrs. Morel), Mary Ure (Clara Dawes), Heather Sears (Miriam), William Lucas (William Morel), Conrad Phillips (Baxter Dawes), Ernest Thesiger (Mr. Hadlock), Donald Pleasence (Pappleworth), Rosalie Crutchley (Mrs. Leivers), Sean Barrett (Arthur Morel), Elizabeth Begley (Mrs. Radford). Directed by Jack Cardiff.
SYNOPSIS: In the small mining town of Nottinghamshire, Paul Morel lives at home and plans to pursue a career in art. His mother nurtures yet smothers him, while his father does not understand why his son has chosen not to work in the mines like he does. However, a mining accident takes the life of Paul’s brother Arthur, thus changing the dynamics in the Morel household for the worse. Mr. Morel harbors anger toward his wife for looking down on him and often goes on drinking sprees; in turn, Mrs. Morel becomes more controlling over Paul, especially regarding his love life. No woman that Paul has met pleases his mother, least of all the farmer’s daughter Miriam whom Paul has been seeing. Due to his mother’s biased views, Paul constantly wonders about love and passion, his only examples being his constantly embroiled parents and his other brother William who has recently married. Feeling that Miriam is not physically compatible with him, Paul ends their relationship and begins an affair with Clara Dawes, a married woman employed at Jarrod’s. Although there is instant physical attraction between them, Clara is not convinced that Paul is totally committed to her and she goes back to her husband. In order to help his parents out financially, Paul goes to work at Jarrod’s, a women’s clothing store, but complications set in when Paul’s mother has a heart attack and passes away. Paul sees Miriam again, but is afraid she will smother him just like his mother, and so goes off on his own to finally be free.
COMMENTARY: Sons and Lovers is a beautifully shot film and showcases the feelings that a black and white film can produce. As a testament to this, cinematographer Freddie Francis won an Oscar for his work on Son and Lovers. Jack Cardiff, often referred to as one of the best cinematographers to come out of Hollywood, claimed that this film was among his career favorites. One reviewer noted that “Jack Cardiff, camera man turned director, has filled the film with picture poetry.” [88] As an adaptation of D.H. Lawrence’s classic tale, Sons and Lovers certainly garnered a lot of praise with many nominations and awards for the lead actors as well as for Francis and Cardiff. Dean Stockwell, who started out as a successful child actor, proves here that his acting talent matured as he got older, for his Paul Morel is a tortured, free-thinking youth, due mostly to his mother’s controlling interference in his life. Like the previous Pleasence film Look Back in Anger, Sons and Lovers fits well into the British new wave genre that dealt with the hardships that youths of the 1950s were forced to confront; in fact, an interesting connection is Mary Ure who plays similarly jilted women in both of these films stuck in abusive relationships.
Pleasence is practically wasted in Sons and Lovers as the owner of Jarrod’s, for he is not given much to do and appears in only a single scene. One day, and looking quite dapper in his suit, Pappleworth walks into the factory to find Paul holding a woman’s brassier and quickly becomes the brunt of a joke by Pappleworth. The best interaction occurs between Pappleworth and Clara Dawes, the overseer of Jarrod’s, who besides being one of Paul’s love interests is also an outspoken suffragette. The two exchange some heated words and go head to head before Pappleworth, after probably realizing that he cannot win an argument with Clara, relents with a joke and lets her go on to train Paul. An interesting note is that Sons and Lovers was filmed on location in Nottinghamshire, the birthplace of Donald Pleasence.