I’ve seen this movie before – more than once, even – but for some reason this time it really clicked for me as a hilarious comedy. James Mason’s swallowed lines are one scream after another, and each character is in a race to be the most deplorable – even the young sexually abused titular girl.
According to Wikipedia, Kubrick regretted having to keep the sex out due to censors (indeed, there isn’t a frame of the film as lusty as the poster), but I think keeping it as is keeps it perfectly light, agreeable, hysterical. I’ve never seen the trashy Adrian Lyne/Jeremy Irons version that is supposedly truer to the book (that I haven’t read), but I have a hunch I wouldn’t like it.
