Lady Chatterley's lover, D.H.Lawrence

Lady Chatterley's Lover, Just Jaeckin (1981), France

The Lady Lies - Genesis

Lady Chatterley's lover
(Tr. Spa-Eng. from a Shvoong Review)

The story is that of adultery which does not end badly or leads the offenders to destruction (as in Madame Bovary or Anna Karenina), but they are reaffirmed in their commitment to authenticity and sensuality. Connie, a young rich eager for life and culture, marries a member of the lowest nobility, Clifford Chatterley, who is seriously injured in the Great War so that he is doomed to impotence and to spend the rest of his days on a wheelchair. Understanding the situation of his wife, Clifford hints to Connie it would not bother him if she took a lover as far as she keeps up appearances. She has an affair with someone in their circle of friends, but it is disappointing. However, shortly after that, in one of her walks, she meets the gamekeeper of her husband's estate, a former blacksmith named Mellors, of robust appearance and broad dialectal speech, and she feels strongly attracted to him. Gradually, Connie leaves her husband to her nurse Bolton's meticulous care and begins to frequent the isolated cabin where the gamekeeper lives, single since separated from his wife. 

 Soon, their strident sexual encounter comes, described with all sorts of details (which will result in the novel banned in England and America for several decades), giving way to a better understanding of the reality of both. Mellors turns out to be less harsh than he seems: ex-military and fairly cultured, he declares himself renegade of social conventions and easements and says he is unable to climb up the world as he does not know how to accept it. The romance continues in secret (only the nurse discovers it, but she does not tell anyone) until the woman becomes pregnant. As Connie knows that Clifford is able to accept that she had a child as far as it came from a lover of his class, she decides to use a trip to Venice to simulate an affair there in order to have the child with no need to say who the father is. The plan gets complicated when Mellors' wife comes back with him with the intention to resume the marriage and being rejected she begins to air the sexual debauchery that the gamekeeper had always apparently shown, including, if only by way of suspicion, the recent relationship with Lady Chatterley. Clifford dismisses Mellors, even without believing that rumor and just for the scandal produced and for the pride the gamekeeper shows in front of him. Connie, who intends to go to live with Mellors, appears to her husband to tell him she's pregnant, but pretending that the father is an acquaintance of the family. In the discussion that leads the news, Connie cannot help revealing the real author of the pregnancy and all her love affair with him. Clifford feels sick to hear that she has been capable of getting involved with a vulgar servant and assures her that, just to pester her, he will never divorce. After speaking with the nurse and asking her to keep her informed of any change in the attitude of Clifford, Connie leaves home with the prospect of living with Mellors in the near future, when things become clearer.

Marc Allegret (1955), France