Sons and Lovers

Cast and Crew Members

Cast

Mary Ure

Mary Ure

Trevor Howard

Dean Stockwell

Dean Stockwell

Wendy Hiller

Heather Sears

William Lucas

Conrad Phillips

Ernest Thesiger

Ernest Thesiger

Donald Pleasence

Rosalie Crutchley

Crew Members

Jack Cardiff Director

Jack Cardiff Director

Gavin Lambert Screenplay

Gavin Lambert Screenplay

T. E. B. Clarke Screenplay

T. E. B. Clarke Screenplay

Awards and Nominations

Audience Reviews

Read authentic reviews from real viewers about this movie.

• CinemaSerf

  Rating: 7/10

  "Dean Stockwell is on good form here, as the artistically talented "Paul" who lives with his miner father "Walter" (Trevor Howard) and mother (Wendy Hiller). When tragedy strikes their local mine, she is even more determined to ensure that this son does not go down the pit - and when "Hadlock" (Ernest Thesiger) offers him an opportunity to come to London and work - it looks like he might escape this dead-end existence. His dad, however, comes home drunk and he and his wife have an altercation that makes "Paul" stay put. Is he staying to protect her, or because he is really too afraid to cut the apron strings? Jack Cardiff really does lay the foundations for this story well; a good solid cast deliver a story with plenty of simultaneously running themes. The tightly-knit family with their individual demons, trapped in an economic bubble of low income, minimal opportunities, and other people's wives. Hiller is superbly understated as the inadvertently domineering, but well meaning matriarch and though Howard features but sparingly, his presence in each scene has purpose. The title is a bit misleading - one assumes it is a romance, or some sort of Jane Austen style of story; but D.H. Lawrence has imbued these characters with a plausibility that engenders sympathy, fury and frustration from the audience. Sixty years on, this is still a potent social commentary that many families and communities may well continue to relate to."

• CinemaSerf

  Rating: 7/10

  "Dean Stockwell is on good form here, as the artistically talented "Paul" who lives with his miner father "Walter" (Trevor Howard) and mother (Wendy Hiller). When tragedy strikes their local mine, she is even more determined to ensure that this son does not go down the pit - and when "Hadlock" (Ernest Thesiger) offers him an opportunity to come to London and work - it looks like he might escape this dead-end existence. His dad, however, comes home drunk and he and his wife have an altercation that makes "Paul" stay put. Is he staying to protect her, or because he is really too afraid to cut the apron strings? Jack Cardiff really does lay the foundations for this story well; a good solid cast deliver a story with plenty of simultaneously running themes. The tightly-knit family with their individual demons, trapped in an economic bubble of low income, minimal opportunities, and other people's wives. Hiller is superbly understated as the inadvertently domineering, but well meaning matriarch and though Howard features but sparingly, his presence in each scene has purpose. The title is a bit misleading - one assumes it is a romance, or some sort of Jane Austen style of story; but D.H. Lawrence has imbued these characters with a plausibility that engenders sympathy, fury and frustration from the audience. Sixty years on, this is still a potent social commentary that many families and communities may well continue to relate to."

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