Celebrated, yet highly controversial, novelist and poet D.H. Lawrence often wrote about subjects that would get him censored throughout his short career. The Rainbow, Women in Love and Lady Chatterley’s Lover all faced immense scrutiny for their frank depictions of sexuality and language. The persecution for being honest about the human condition of lust and sex became so great that he was forced to self-exile himself to gain relief from the public outcry. Not as well known, yet equally as well written as his more famous works, Sons and Lovers takes a semi-autobiographical approach to its narrative, following a domineering mother and her two elder sons, both of whom she fears will fall in love and leave the nest. Nearly fifty years after its publication, Sons and Lovers was finally brought to the screen, significantly altered while maintaining the backbone of the story and most of the oedipal complex that is the through line of the plot.
The novel was based in the UK but when it was first optioned for film in the 1950’s it was planned for a relocation to the United States with Montgomery Clift and Marilyn Monroe in the leads. This didn’t materialize leading to producer Jerry Wald’s second choice, James Dean being considered. When Dean was famously killed in an automobile accident Wald must have thought an American production of the novel was cursed because he changed the setting back to the UK. Still, he wanted an American actor in the lead role and that eventually went to Dean Stockwell, a young performer who had been acting since he was a small child. This choice was primarily made in an attempt to boost the chances for box-office success and perhaps that worked as the film made a modest profit. Stockwell was panned, though, for his stilted performance that evoked not one ounce of his character’s British heritage. It became a sticking point for critics at the time and, watching it all these years later, it is apparent that he wasn’t the right choice for such a crucial role.
The novel was broken up into two parts, the first following the elder brother, William, and the second part covering the middle brother, Paul. Most of the first part has been jettisoned or heavily altered for the film. In the film William (William Lucas) is a minor character who shows up just for a few scenes. He spends much of the film away from home living in London and pursuing a career and a woman. Paul (Dean Stockwell) is the main focus of the movie. Paul has a talent for the arts and wants to pursue his dream of becoming an artist. His mother, Gertrude (Wendy Hiller), encourages this ambition but the father, Walter (Trevor Howard), works in the coal mines and mocks his son for his dreams. When an accident in the mines kills the youngest brother, Arthur (Sean Barrett), Paul is even more determined not to work there.
Paul has an intellectual relationship with Miriam (Heather Sears), the daughter of a religious zealot mother who has pushed her strong views of love and sex onto her daughter pressuring her to accept that all of that is evil and we are on this earth to suffer. This has led Miriam to struggle with her feelings towards Paul as well as to be reluctant to allow their relationship to move beyond the intellectual and into the physical. Paul eventually convinces her to sleep with him but afterwards regrets it when he sees how unhappy she is. His mother disapproves of his relationship with Miriam, thinking the girl is beneath him. He gets an opportunity to train in London as an artist when one of his sketches gets bought by an art patron who offers to fund his training in exchange for some of the profit from his work. Unfortunately his father’s drunken behavior leads him to believe he cannot leave his mother alone with him while he is off at school and he turns down the offer. Instead he finds work locally, then gets involved with a woman, Clara (Mary Ure) who has left her husband physically, but not fully emotionally. Like Miriam, his mother disapproves of Clara and pushes for Paul to stay away from her. It takes some harsh words from her husband to open her eyes to the fact that she has unfairly guilted her son into putting off his life and happiness because she was too afraid of losing him to another woman.
This is really a downer of a film. There is no happy ending for Paul as he navigates through his relationships with Miriam and Clara while constantly having the shadow of his mother overlooking them. The film glosses over it but the novel spells it out explicitly that the same thing was happening to his older brother William who was able to escape to London and find a fiancé. When William returns for Arthur’s funeral he brings with him a picture of his intended and Gertrude is immediately disapproving of her. Later, when he returns bringing her with him, Gertrude doesn’t like her, viewing her as flighty and a air-headed. William has escaped the house and doesn’t have to deal with the overly-possessive mother the way Paul does. With Paul the opportunity to escape and have a real life evaporates when his younger brother dies leaving him the last remaining son still at home.
Paul’s relationship opportunities are limited with where he is at, too, and neither of his choices gains any approval from his mother. She looks down on Miriam, pinning her in with her overbearing mother. Later, with Clara, she views her as the married woman that she is, pointing out that it’s not appropriate for him to be seeing a woman that is still married, separated or not; People will judge. When Clara’s estranged husband assaults him one evening both are injured and Clara goes back to her husband leaving Paul alone again.
With Miriam, Paul has the intellectual stimulation but not the physical intimacy he shared with Clara. Miriam offers to marry him but he refuses because she has been so conditioned by her mother that there is no real love and life is meant for suffering that she can’t truly fall in love with him. After Paul’s mother passes away he finally can leave and go to London but, even though Miriam is also going to the city for her own reasons, he turns down the opportunity to marry her there. He wants to live and doesn’t see marrying her being compatible with that. With the loss of his mother he is emotionally lost and maybe having some time to himself, learning his trade and living for a while, he may find his own brand of happiness but for the time being he just wants to live.
This is a melancholic look at relationships between men and the women in their lives, both lovers and mothers. Paul, while not overtly oedipal in his relationship with his mother, is stymied in his ability to have much of a physical relationship with women because of her. Gertrude insists that she wants her son to be happy yet when something comes along that will get between her and him she is unhappy and can’t help expressing her feelings about it. Had Paul been able to escape to London earlier and gone to that art school he may have had a chance to have a happy life like his older brother. Unfortunately, with William being gone already and Arthur getting killed, all of his mother’s attention ends up squarely on him and he suffers the most from it. The ending doesn’t feel optimistic in the slightest that he will ever overcome her influence on his life and left me speculating just what kind of relationships he is likely to have in the future. I’d like to think he will eventually find his way to happiness but nothing in the film’s climax leads me to believe that is likely to happen.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Motion Picture: Jerry Wald
Best Director: Jack Cardiff
Best Actor: Trevor Howard
Best Supporting Actress: Mary Ure
Best Screenplay - Based on Material from Another Medium: Gavin Lambert and T.E.B. Clarke
Best Art Direction - Black and White: Thomas N. Morahan and Lionel Couch
Best Cinematography - Black and White: Freddie Francis (won)
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Release Date: June 23, 1960
Running Time: 103 Minutes
Not Rated
Starring: Trevor Howard, Dean Stockwell, Wendy Hiller, Mary Ure and Heather Sears
Directed By: Jack Cardiff
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