While researching the work of author D.H. Lawrence, Kate begins a romance with a fellow academic, and learns about Lawrence’s love affair with the married aristocrat Frieda Von Richthofen in this made-for-television drama. As Lawrence and Von Richthofen fall deeper into their forbidden relationship, Kate grows more familiar with Lawrence’s work, such as the sensuous Lady Chatterly’s Lover.
Director: Peter Barber-Fleming.
Writer: Alan Plater.
Stars: Helen Mirren, Kenneth Branagh, Alison Steadman, Philip Martin Brown, Felicity Montagu, Fiona Victory, Norman Rodway, Alison King, Lynn Farleigh, Malcolm Storry, Robin Paul Bassford, Benjamin Whitrow, Liz May Brice, Sebastian Rose, Camilla Aspey.
The gaping hole in my DH Lawrence related filmography now filled! Someday I hope that the Alan Plater scripted PRIEST OF LOVE is wrested from Christopher Miles and fully restored to its original, superior 123 minute splendor. It is a companion to this and completes DHL’s life story (The present Director’s Cut DVD of it is a sanitized, truncated mess)
Now that I’ve watched this, I wish they hadn’t imposed a framing device a la THE FRENCH LIEUTENANT’S WOMAN; it adds nothing to it. However, the biographical scenes are wonderfully rendered and lead seamlessly into PRIEST OF LOVE (1981) where the matured DH and Frieda Lawrence are Ian McKellen and Janet Suzman. Listening to Kenneth Branagh read DHL’s verse here is Pure Gold. Thanks for this post, Jon.