Master cinematographer Jack Cardiff directed Sons And Lovers and got an Oscar nomination for it. The adaption of the D.H. Lawrence novel also yielded an Oscar nomination for Trevor Howard as Best Actor playing the rough and outspoken patriarch of the Welsh Morel family. The film is a look at a Welsh coal miner's family just before World War I.
But if you are expecting something like John Ford's How Green Was My Valley let me disabuse you of that quickly. There's nothing poetical in the life these miner's lead, certainly Howard doesn't find it. One of his three sons is killed early on in a mining accident and another moves away from Howard and wife Wendy Hiller.
But the third son based in part on Lawrence himself is a talented artist and has little chance of really blooming into a full fledged artist in Wales. He's played by Dean Stockwell and Hiller really clings to him. Which annoys Howard no end as he feels he should do his bit to put food on the table as the rest of the men do.
Stockwell of course is torn and his struggle is the basis for the novel. He gets a job doing displays in a dress shop where he meets Mary Ure who is one of the dressmakers, quite a beauty, already married, but a woman who believes in free love. Stockwell gets some free samples. He's also involved with Heather Sears a pious young lady who comes from a religious family.
Howard got his one and only Oscar nomination for this part. He who got first recognition for playing romantic leads like Brief Encounter is anything but romantic here. He's blustering and swaggering and dominates the scene with whomever he's in it. Wendy Hiller is pained to keep up with him, but as the clinging vine of a mother it's really her character on which the plot turns.
Sons And Lovers yielded one Oscar, for black and white cinematography to Freddie Francis. On a television interview Jack Cardiff said that he never interfered with the camera work in this film. Like a good chief executive he picked the right subordinate for the job and was rewarded for his faith with the film's Oscar.
Sons And Lovers ought to be viewed back to back with How Green Was My Valley. Both are family films set in the same background, but what different families.
But if you are expecting something like John Ford's How Green Was My Valley let me disabuse you of that quickly. There's nothing poetical in the life these miner's lead, certainly Howard doesn't find it. One of his three sons is killed early on in a mining accident and another moves away from Howard and wife Wendy Hiller.
But the third son based in part on Lawrence himself is a talented artist and has little chance of really blooming into a full fledged artist in Wales. He's played by Dean Stockwell and Hiller really clings to him. Which annoys Howard no end as he feels he should do his bit to put food on the table as the rest of the men do.
Stockwell of course is torn and his struggle is the basis for the novel. He gets a job doing displays in a dress shop where he meets Mary Ure who is one of the dressmakers, quite a beauty, already married, but a woman who believes in free love. Stockwell gets some free samples. He's also involved with Heather Sears a pious young lady who comes from a religious family.
Howard got his one and only Oscar nomination for this part. He who got first recognition for playing romantic leads like Brief Encounter is anything but romantic here. He's blustering and swaggering and dominates the scene with whomever he's in it. Wendy Hiller is pained to keep up with him, but as the clinging vine of a mother it's really her character on which the plot turns.
Sons And Lovers yielded one Oscar, for black and white cinematography to Freddie Francis. On a television interview Jack Cardiff said that he never interfered with the camera work in this film. Like a good chief executive he picked the right subordinate for the job and was rewarded for his faith with the film's Oscar.
Sons And Lovers ought to be viewed back to back with How Green Was My Valley. Both are family films set in the same background, but what different families.