It has been said many times here at Skin Central that Lady Chatterley's Lover is one of the hottest adaptations of a novel that has ever graced the screen. Luckily, it has graced the screen numerous times!
The Plot
The plot of Lady Chatterley's Lover follows a young woman named Constance Reid who is known as Lady Chatterley. She is an upper-class lady who is married to Sir Clifford Chatterley. Though he is super handsome, her hubby is paralyzed after injuries in World War I. Thus Constance is filled with unfulfilled sexual desires (it seems like they could work around that, but this was the early 20th century so I won't suggest sex toys to the royal couple).
How does Lady Chatterley get her jollies? She bangs a man working on the estate, the gamekeeper Oliver Mellors. Their class difference is glaring, but their passion brings them together. Constance loves her husband, but intellectual stimulation is not enough for her. She wants Oliver's bod and she wants it bad.
She is SO horned up that she can't help herself! She has a wild affair that opens up her mind AND body to the gamekeeper. The novel is so much more than sex.
For its time and the classes that it was dealing with, the novel was writing about new ideas regarding love and that romantic love needed a balance of body and mind. Luckily, Lady Chatterley gave the readers - and the film audiences - a great deal of her body!
The Author
D.H. Lawrence was a randy little fellow. He was a novelist, playwright, essayist, and painter (and more!) who wrote about early 20th-century issues. He was really good at writing about love and sex! Not only did he write Lady Chatterley's Lover, but he also wrote The Rainbow and Women in Love. All of these novels were subjected to censorship scandals because of how explicitly they described sexual activities. Oh, behave!
That is why his novels continue to make such great adaptations. He wrote about sex in a very modern way - and a very horny way! Sadly, his work was too horny for the Brits at the time and he was often too controversial for high society. As a result, he isolated himself quite a bit.
The True Story
Lawrence was open about the fact that his real-life and his relationship with his wife Frieda inspired the novel. Some literary scholars have said that his dalliance with Lady Ottoline Morrell influenced his story. He supposedly was going to title the book John Thomas and Lady Jane which were then slang references to sex organs.
The novel was originally published in 1928 and it went on to receive several re-publications with various words censored. For example, in 1960 the publisher went to trial for the book under the Obscene Publications Act of 1959 due to the swear words in the book. Not even the sex, but the naughty words. How were people in the early 1960s clutching their pearls more than people in 1928? I don't have the answer, but they were.
Hilariously, the second Penguin edition of the book was published with this dedication: "For having published this book, Penguin Books were prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, 1959 at the Old Bailey in London from 20 October to 2 November 1960. This edition is therefore dedicated to the twelve jurors, three women and nine men, who returned a verdict of 'Not Guilty' and thus made D.H. Lawrence's last novel available for the first time to the public in the United Kingdom."
The books are no longer censored - and neither are the films. Ever since 1981, very sexually charged versions of this story have been released and we love every single one of them. The Rainbow and Women in Love are also frequently adapted, proving that reading rules when sex is in it!
Sylvia Kristel in Lady Chatterley's Lover
01:00:51 Sylvia's suck sacks are exposed thanks to her open blouse as low rent Kevin Kline holds her from behind! (26 secs)