Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov’s novel still holds up because it was made at a time when onscreen sexuality of any kind was fraught at best, allowing it to smuggle the worst implications past viewers via the formidable charm of James Mason as the title nymphet’s father-figure/abductor. The most scandalous aspect is how Kubrick almost allowed Peter Sellers to run off with the whole thing as Mason’s rival.
