MGM
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
My rating: 3 stars out of 4
IMDb
(Blu-ray, Warner Bros.)
Middle-aged literature professor James Mason becomes obsessed with the teenage daughter of his landlady while visiting America. He goes as far as marrying her mother just to be close to her. He unwisely writes his thoughts in a diary, which his wife eventually finds. He contemplates killing her, but she dies in an accident instead. He takes off with the girl and they settle down in a college town. His jealousy eventually drives them apart, and him to the verge of insanity. Peter Sellers is a very creepy character who schemes to take her away, and pays the ultimate price. Sellers is an enigma here, his character ill-defined, and his acting a bit over the top, a distraction from the main relationships that drive the plot. Mason seems uncomfortable in their exchanges. There are a couple of scenes with the "Kubrick touch", the landscapes and fog, but overall this is a bit too stagy and melodramatic to be a true Kubrick classic.
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