TCM, 8:00 p.m. ET
In Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial novel Lolita, the story of a middle-aged college professor becoming infatuated with a young girl, the girl was identified as 12 years old. For this 1962 movie version, because of MPAA dictates at the time, the age of the character was raised a bit and not really identified. Stanley Kubrick directed the film, and cast Sue Lyon in the title role. Lyon was 14 years old when she was cast, and 15 when the movie was released. James Mason, who was then 53, starred as Prof. Humbert Humbert, who is friendly with a woman (Shelley Winters) but increasingly enamored of her nymphet daughter Lolita. Peter Sellers co-stars, playing multiple roles – a dry run of sorts for what he would do for Kubrick two years later in 1964’s Dr. Strangelove, or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. The movie Lolita is tamer than the book, and the often banned book, told from Humbert’s point of view, is both funnier and sadder as it delves into the proclivities and perversions of its protagonist. But Kubrick manages to be extremely eyebrow-raising regardless, especially when tracking the shifting power dynamic as Lolita discovers, and begins to wield, the power she has over her obsessed elder – acting bored as he fastidiously paints her toenails, for example.
HBO, 10:00 p.m. ET
SERIES PREMIERE:
Time magazine describes this new series as “a
Working Girl for a new generation” – but there are some differences. It’s set in the world of high finance and stock traders, but the protagonist isn’t a young white woman played by Melanie Griffith, but a young Black woman played by Myha’la Herrold. And the setting isn’t Wall Street – it’s London. First-time TV creators Mickey Down and Konrad Kay have the backing of some powerful believers:
Girls creator Lena Dunham is a producer here, and also directs tonight’s premiere.
For a full review, see David Hinckley's All Along the Watchtower.