Before our feature presentation, ACME would like to start the evening with another Daffy Duck Looney Tunes cartoon, the 1946
The front page with the headline about police setting a trap contains some rather grim stories, including one about identifying seared bodies, another about a girl's kidnapper (spelled "kidnaper") still being at large and another about an "all-out battle for Hungary" nearing its climax.
Before the start of our feature presentation, join us in paying tribute to Burt Bacharach, whom we lost earlier this week -
Burt Bacharach was so prolific for so long that you probably don't realize how many of the songs you like were written by him. A talent like his will not be seen again.
We've picked another entry from the excellent reference book, 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die by Steven Jay Schneider. Today's film is the controversial 1962 drama, Lolita, directed by film legend Stanley Kubrick, and starring James Mason, Shelley Winters, Peter Sellers, and in the title role, the 14 year old, Sue Lyon. Casting for the film was challenging. Tuesday Weld was first considered for the part but by the time the film actually approached the production stage, she was already too old for the role. As for the role of Humbert Humbert, David Niven, Rex Harrison, and Noel Coward were all candidates but declined, fearing it was too risky a venture and might actually hurt their careers; some of them reasoning that audiences might identify them too closely with the part. When Lolita was released nationally, it received mixed reviews. Some critics complained that the film lacked the depth and psychological detail of the original novel but the film was a commercial success, grossing over $9 million dollars, domestically.
As one could imagine, given the original novel's central theme, censors would not allow anything close to a suggestion of pedophilia, the sexual relationship between Lolita and Humbert had to be implied and never depicted graphically on the screen. Lolita's age had to be increased from 12, in Vladimir Nabokov's original novel, to 14 for the film. They also objected to a scene where Humbert Humbert was to gaze at Lolita's picture while in bed with her mother Charlotte; in the end, the scene was filmed with Charlotte lying fully dressed on the bed and Humbert lying atop her, wearing a robe. 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. The ACME Eagle Hand Soap Radio Hour would like you to join us in watching Lolita. So push away from the table, get comfortable and enjoy the film.
Sue Lyon did not attend the New York premiere in June '62, as she was too young to see the film. However, she was allowed to attend the London premiere at the Columbia Theatre, in September, even though the film was rated X by the British Board of Film Censors.
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