Not even outright loathers of D.H. Lawrence, much less his merely temperate or lukewarm admirers, will be apt to let their doubts about his work mushroom into doubts about his worthiness as the subject of a screen biography. But Christopher Miles, cinematic executor of The Virgin and the Gypsy and hence a proven devotee, seems to depend rather too much on our presumed reverence and fascination to keep our eyes glued to Priest of Love, a procession of picturesque settings and piquant episodes given no discernible shape or point. Miles gives out a rather restricted notion of Lawrence as a writer -- a sort of literary high-hurdler forever bounding over the obstacles that prudery has put in the way of English culture ("Ever since Geoffrey Chaucer, writers have been frightened," he huffs. "Five hundred years is too long to be frightened"). And there are numerous illustrations, as should have been expected, of his famous spontaneity: smashing his hostess's good dishware, ripping up his own manuscripts in a pique, bashing his wife around in front of such civilized company as Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry. The overall sensation is that of browsing through a printed biography, pausing here and there to read an eye-catching passage, and coming out at the far end with no cohesive view of the subject. With Ian McKellen, Janet Suzman, and Ava Gardner. (1981) — Duncan Shepherd
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