overview
On the death of his parents, Frank, a romantic teenager, moves in with his aunt and uncle He quickly falls in love with his beautiful, sophisticated aunt, Martha, and begins to fantasize about her. Frank is torn between his adolescent desires and his fondness for his Uncle Charles.
Based on a novel by Vladimir Nabokov, this English-language satirical drama details the experiences of Frank (John Moulder Brown), a young orphan who finds himself deep in the romantic clutches of his uncle's sensual wife. After Frank's parents die, he goes to live with his aunt Martha (Gina Lollabrigida) and uncle Charles (David Niven). Sexy Martha entices Frank into her embrace, then...
Probably the most unjustly underrated of all Skolimowski's films, a surreal black comedy - based on Nabokov's novel retailing a triangle situation, with puckish overtones of obsession and perversion, between a wealthy businessman, his luscious wife, and an orphaned boy - that pushes some of the satirical extravagances of Frank Tashlin and Jerry Lewis to their most logical and deathly conclusions. Hilarious, misanthropic and disturbing, the movie amply fulfils Tom Milne's description of it as 'the most Nabokovian film the cinema has thrown up to date'.