All language subtitles for The Chatterley Affair 2006.1

This programme contains
very strong language
and some scenes of a sexual nature.

MUSIC: "C'mon Everybody"
by Eddie Cochrane

Wonder what we'll get.

I'd like a nice juicy murder,
lashings of blood.

Oh, don't say that.

I don't even like
going in the butcher's.

D'you know how long a trial goes on?
As long as it takes, I imagine.

No, but,
I mean, do they have breaks,
like if someone wanted the toilet?

Yes, I was wondering that.

The jury system has been going for
800 years, so I should think they
would have thought of that by now.

I should cocoa! Oh, right.

Thank you.

Follow me, please.

Members of the jury, as your
name is called, you will stand,

take the book in your right hand,
and read the words on the card.

Raymond Charles Topping.

I swear by Almighty God...

..I will well and truly try
the several issues joined...

Keith Ernest Gray.

..and a true verdict give
according to the evidence.

'I don't mind telling you,
I was terrified.'

I'd never been in a court before,
or even been stopped by a policeman,

so when the summons came, I thought,
"This is it, they got me now!"

'I was actually quite
pleased to get the summons.'

I thought it might be quite
a diversion, for while I was
waiting for what happened next.

'My life was
at a bit of a standstill,
to be quite frank with you.'

Members of the jury, the prisoner
at the Bar, Penguin Books Limited,

is charged with publishing an
obscene article, to wit, a book
entitled Lady Chatterley's Lover.

To this indictment it has pleaded
not guilty and it is your charge

to say, having heard the evidence,
whether it be guilty or not.

If Your Lordship pleases,
I appear, with my learned friend Mr
Morton, to prosecute in this case.

Members of the jury, it was learnt
earlier this year that Penguin Books

proposed to publish this book,
Lady Chatterley's Lover.

As a result of that,
the company were seen by the police,
and so it comes about

that you find yourselves in
the jury box to give your judgement
on Lady Chatterley's Lover.

I quote from the Obscene
Publications Act of 1959.

"A book is to be deemed to
be obscene if its effect,
taken as a whole,

"is such as to tend
to deprave and corrupt persons
who are likely to read it."

So, does this book, might this book,
deprave and corrupt anyone who
might be likely to read it?

And my learned friend will doubtless
argue that the book is not obscene,
and that even if it were,

its literary merit
would warrant its publication
as being for the public good.

The prosecution will invite you
to say that this book does tend

to introduce lustful thoughts in
the minds of those who read it.

It goes further, you may think.

It sets upon a pedestal promiscuous
and adulterous intercourse.

It commends,
indeed, it even sets out to commend
sensuality almost as a virtue.

It encourages, and indeed
advocates coarseness and vulgarity
of thought and language.

You may think that it must tend to
deprave the minds, certainly of
some, and you may think of many

of those persons who are likely
to purchase it at the price
of three shillings and sixpence.

You may think that one of the ways
in which you can test the book

is to ask yourselves, once
you have read it, this question -

would you approve of your young
sons, your young daughters -

because girls can read as well
as boys - reading this book?

Is it a book that you would even
wish your wife or servants to read?

LAUGHTER

Well, let us turn now
to the book itself.

I'd actually read the book years
ago, well, glanced through it.

Ray, my first husband,
had picked a copy up in Paris.

To tell the truth,
I wasn't really interested then,

not that interested in
other people's sex lives.

I was too involved in our own,

Ray's and mine. Then.

It is, if I may summarise,
the story of Lady Chatterley,

a young woman whose husband is
wounded in the First World War,

paralysed from the waist downwards
so that he is unable to have
any sexual intercourse.

It describes how this woman,
deprived of sex from her husband,
satisfies her sexual desires -

a sex-starved girl -
how she satisfies that starvation

with a particularly sensual man
who happens to be
her husband's gamekeeper.

There are, I think,
13 episodes of sexual intercourse
described in the greatest detail.

The curtains are never drawn.

One follows them not only
into the bedroom but into bed.

But that is not strictly accurate,
members of the jury,

because one starts
in my lady's boudoir,

then one goes to the floor of a hut
in the forest,

then we see them again
in the forest, in the undergrowth,
in the pouring rain,

both of them stark naked
and dripping with raindrops.

Then in the keeper's cottage, first
in the evening on the hearthrug,
then in the morning in bed.

And then we move to Bloomsbury
and we have it all over again

in the attic of a Bloomsbury
boarding house!

When you read these passages you may
well think that sex is dragged in

at every conceivable opportunity
and you may think that the story
is little more than padding.

Hmm. Now we come to the language.

The book abounds
in bawdy conversation.

These matters are not
normally voiced in this court,

but when it forms the whole
subject matter of the prosecution,
then we cannot avoid voicing them.

The word fuck or fucking
occurs no less than 30 times.

Cunt...14 times.

Balls...13 times.

Shit and arse, six times apiece.

Cock, four times.

Piss, three times. And...so on.

Lady Chatterley and the
gamekeeper are, you may think,
little more than bodies,

bodies which continuously have
sexual intercourse with each other.

You will see, for example,
on page seven...

My Lord, I object! The Act says
the book must be judged as a whole.

To consider particular passages
without having read the whole book
would be to prejudge the issue.

It was not my intention
to prejudice or inflame the jury's
minds before they read the book.

No-one is suggesting that,
Mr Griffith-Jones.

But the book is charged as a whole,
and perhaps the better course is for
the jury to read the book first,

before hearing evidence
about the whole book
or any particular passages in it.

As Your Lordship pleases.

Well, the question now, then, is
the reading of the book, is it not?

How shall that be done?

Perhaps the jury should
take the book home, my Lord?

I think not.

I think they should read it here.

I am sorry, members of the jury,
I don't want to condemn you to
any kind of discomfort,

but if you were to take the book
home, there might be distractions.

You should read the book
through in the jury room,
taking as much time as you need.

I suppose it might take
a day or two.

Then we will all come back here
and proceed with the case.

All rise!

Help yourselves to copies
and make yourselves comfortable.

The lunch break will be at 12.30.

This is a bit of all right.
Beats working, eh?

There's to be no discussion until
after you've completed your reading.

"Ours is essentially a tragic age,
so we refuse to take it tragically.

"The cataclysm has happened..."

"This was Constance Chatterley's
position.

"The war had brought the roof down
over her head.

"She had married Clifford Chatterley
when he was home on leave.

"They had a month's honeymoon,
then he went back to Flanders

"to be shipped over to England
again, six months later,
more or less in bits..."

"He was not really downcast.

"He had a bath-chair with
a small motor attachment..."

"I'm sorry we can't have a son,
she said..."

"It would be almost a good thing if
you had a child by another man..."

"This is the new gamekeeper,
Mellors..."

"The keeper's cottage
looked uninhabited,
it was so silent and alone.

"She went round the side
of the house, turned the corner
and stopped.

"In the little yard, two paces
beyond her, the man was washing
himself, utterly unaware.

"He was naked to the hips,
his velveteen breeches slipping
down over his slender loins..."

I didn't know where to look,
when he was saying those words.

Some people thought it was funny.
I did laugh, I couldn't help it.

It was just, I dunno,
I'd never heard anyone say words
like that in a posh voice.

It was the absurdity of it. Yeah.
Exactly. The place for words like
that is the gutter, not in court.

I don't see why he felt he had to
say them out loud, we all know
what they all are, after all.

I call it rank bad taste.

I suppose he felt he was
doing his duty, like.

I think he was enjoying himself
no end. Like a little boy saying,
"Pee-po belly bum drawers"!

So what do we all
think of the book so far?

We're not supposed to discuss
it until we've finished it.

Come on, of course they know
we're going to talk about it.

Well, she certainly puts herself
about a bit, don't she? Lady C.

Two Germans, that Michaels bloke,
and we haven't even got to
the gamekeeper yet.

Is that what the aristocracy's like?
In my experience, yes.

I suppose they've got
the leisure time for it. Exactly.

What do you think of it?

I'm rather enjoying it, so far.

Although he does make an
awful song and dance about it.

It's only sex, after all, isn't it?

"One evening she escaped after tea.

"It was late, and she fled across
the park like one who fears to be
called back.

" 'I'd love to see the chicks!'
she said, panting, glancing shyly at
the keeper, almost unaware of him."

"The man standing above her laughed,
and crouched down,

"and put his hand with quiet
confidence slowly into the coop.

"And slowly, softly,
with sure, gentle fingers,

"he felt among the bird's feathers
and drew out a faintly-peeping chick
in his closed hand..."

"She took the drab little thing
between her hands,

"and there it stood, on its
impossible little stalks of legs,

"its atom of life trembling
through its almost weightless feet
into Connie's hands..."

"Suddenly he saw a tear
fall on her wrist.

"Her face was averted,
and she was crying blindly.

"His heart melted suddenly,
and he put out his hand and
laid his fingers on her knee.

" 'You shouldn't cry,'
he said softly.

"He laid his hand on her shoulder,
and softly, gently, it began to
travel down the curve of her back,

"blindly, with a blind stroking
motion, to the curve of her loins,

"and there his hand, softly, softly,
stroked the curve of her flank,

"in the blind instinctive caress."

Funny old way to spend a day.
Yeah, I'll say.

Better than work, though.

I'm Helena, by the way. Keith.

Pleased to meet you, Keith.

So, what's the work you're
not doing today? Invoice clerk.

For a wholesale grocers.

Don't you like it? I hate it.

Same thing over and over again -
adding up, adding up, adding up,

then the supervisor checks 'em all
on an adding machine.
It's all pointless.

They'll replace us all with machines.

I can't wait. What'll you do then?

Dunno.

Maybe I'll retrain as a gamekeeper!

Well, it does sound
like rather a good job.

Are you married, Keith?

I am, as it happens, yeah. Are you?

Yes and no. In the process of
divorcing, just waiting for
my papers to come through.

Oh, right. My life's in a sort
of limbo at the moment.

No proper home. I'm living
in a little flat over a shop, just
round the corner actually. Oh, yeah?

I, er, I turn off here.

Are you in a hurry, Keith?

No, not especially.
There's something I'd like to show
you...something I saw this morning.

It's just down here.

All right, then.

Look. Chicks.

Open your hands.

Don't you like it? I dunno.

I don't wanna hurt it.
You won't hurt it.

There.

Look, what is this?

You know what it is.
Look, I'd better get going.

I thought we might have a cup
of tea. You haven't got time?

No, I think I'd...you know,

better get going. OK, then.

See you in court tomorrow. Yeah.

See you tomorrow.

So what was it like, then?

It was all right.
Did you get your dinner? Yeah.

What was it like?
It was all right. Not bad.

So did you get on a case? Yeah.
Was it a murder?

No, nothing like that.

What, then?

We're not supposed to discuss it.
Come on, you can tell me.

It's about a book.
Lady Chatterley's Lover.

We've got to read it and
decide if it should be banned.

That's supposed to be
the most disgusting book out!

And you're reading it! Yeah.

The judge won't let the case
start till we've read it.

So I've been hard at work all day,
you've been reading a dirty book!

Yeah, that's right.

What's it like?

It's all right.

I like it, as it happens.
Dirty bugger.

What?

What's the matter? I dunno. Nothing.

You know what it is.

"He held her fast
and she felt his urgency...

"She saw his eyes, tense and
brilliant, fierce, not loving...

"But her will had left her...

"For a moment he was still inside
her, turgid there and quivering.

"Then as he began to move,
in the sudden, helpless orgasm,

"there awoke in her new strange
thrills rippling inside her.

"Rippling, rippling, rippling,

"like a flapping overlapping of
soft flames, soft as feathers,

"running to points of brilliance,
exquisite, exquisite,

"and melting her
all molten inside...

"And as it subsided, he subsided too
and lay utterly still, unknowing,

"while her grip on him slowly
relaxed, and she lay inert.

"And they lay, and knew nothing,
not even of each other, both lost.

" 'It's good when it's like that,'
he said.

" 'Most folks live their whole life
through and they never know it.' "

I thought I'd missed you.

Well, now you've caught me.

We could have that cup of tea
today if you wanted to.

Sure you're not wanted at home?

No, Sylvia doesn't get home
from work till half-past-six.

OK, then.

Now what?

'Members of the jury,'

you have heard from my learned
friend the nature of the case
for the prosecution.

He has told you in general terms
what the book is about,

he has told you that
it is full of repeated descriptions
of sexual intercourse, and so it is.

He has told you it contains many
four-letter words, and so it does.

Sorry, too many things.

You may be asking yourselves,
why should any publisher
want to publish such a book?

Well, Allen Lane,
Sir Allen Lane as he is now,

founded Penguin Books

so that ordinary people could buy all
the great books in our literature

at a reasonable cost.

The whole of Shakespeare,

the whole of Shaw,
and now the whole of Lawrence.

Few people
will disagree that Lawrence is one of
the greatest writers of this century,

and Lady Chatterley's Lover
is an essential novel

if we are to properly understand
what Lawrence had to say,

and to properly understand
Lady Chatterley's Lover,

we must be able to read it...

unexpurgated - to read the book
Lawrence actually wrote.

It is a book about England,

about our society.

Lawrence wanted to say something
about our society in this book.

He thought the ills in our society
would not be cured
by political action,

that the remedy lay in
the restoration of right relations
between human beings,

particularly in the union,

the physical union,

between man and woman.

Are you all right, Keith?

Not regretting it, I hope? No.

I'm just...

I've never done
anything like this before.

Oh, dear.

Have I corrupted you? No.

I didn't mean that.

I thought about doing it with you,

yesterday and today. Did you?

Of course I did. Couldn't you tell?

I thought it was just me. Oh, no.

I've never met
anyone like you before.

You don't know me yet, Keith.

Yeah, I do.

In one way, I do.

Yes.

Yes, you do.

Could I see you?

All of you?

Yes, of course.

You could have before, it was just
we seemed to be in rather a hurry.

Help me.

Now I feel shy.

Now you.

You're beautiful.

DOOR SLAMS

Keith? In here!

What you doing in there
with the door locked? Nothing.

Just having a wash. Having a wash?
What's that all about?

Just felt like it.
It's stuffy in that jury room.

Stuffy, sweaty. Everyone smoking.

And reading that dirty book.
You feel dirty.

You've got very particular.
I've always been particular.

I'm not complaining. Kiss?

# Old Keith Gray, he's a funny 'un
Got a face like a pickled onion

# Got a nose like a squashed tomato
and legs like matchsticks! #

Oi!

You do smell lovely and clean.

I'm doing your favourite tonight.
Yeah?

'I call Sir Allen Lane.'

Sir Allen,
when you founded Penguin Books,
what was the idea you had in mind?

My idea was to produce a book
which would sell
for the price of ten cigarettes,

For people like myself,
who left school at 16 or earlier,

my idea was it would
be another form of education.

And what about this particular book?

We wanted to round off
our DH Lawrence collection.

Very important writer,
very important book.

I felt it had to be done.

Did you consider publishing
an expurgated version?

No. All our books are published
as the author wrote them.

I wouldn't consider doing it any
other way. Thank you, Sir Allen.

Sir Allen, I have read a newspaper
report, in the Manchester Guardian,

in which you expressed an opinion
that Lady Chatterley's Lover
is no great novel.

Was that your view?

No, it was not. As I said, I think
it is a very important novel.

And you don't recall
ever expressing any other view?

No, I do not.

I do remember saying I might
go to prison for publishing it,

and I am prepared to go to prison
if the case goes against us,

because I am sure it is
quite right to publish it.

No further questions.

My Lord, I want to make
clear that calling witnesses

to the literary merit of this book
is not in any sense an admission
that the book is obscene.

That is understood.

I call Mr Graham Hough.

You are lecturer in English
and Fellow of Christ's College,
Cambridge?

And you are the author of The
Dark Sun, a study of DH Lawrence?

That's right. Will you tell us
something of Lawrence's place
in English literature?

He's the most important novelist
of this century and one of the
greatest novelists of any century.

I don't think that's disputed.
And where would you place this book?

I don't think it's the best of his
novels, nor the least good, either.

It has been said by my learned
friend that, "Sex is dragged in

"at every opportunity, and that the
plot is little more than padding."

If that were true, would it be
a serious criticism of the book?

If it were true, it would be,
but in my view it's utterly false.

The sexual passages may be the heart
of the book, but they only occupy
some 30 pages in a book of 300.

The book is about much more
than a series of sexual acts.

What about the four-letter words?

In Lawrence's view there is no
proper language to speak of sexual
matters. He is trying to redeem

the traditional words, now
considered obscene, and to use them
in an entirely serious context.

I don't think he is successful,
but that's what Lawrence was
trying to do. Thank you.

You have told us, Mr Hough, that
this is not Lawrence's best book.

Do you know of the writer
Katherine Anne Porter?

She's a distinguished
American short-story writer.

Just so. This is what she wrote
about Lady Chatterley's Lover.

"A dreary, sad performance,
with some passages of unintentional
hilarious low comedy,

"one scene at least simply beyond
belief in a book written with such
inflamed apostolic solemnity."

What do you think of that judgement?
Obviously, I disagree with it.

She goes on to say, "This is the
fevered daydream of a dying man,

"sitting under
his umbrella pines in Italy,
indulging his sexual fantasies."

Might this not be, in fact, the
fevered daydream of a dying man?

Lawrence wasn't dying
when he wrote this book.
He died some two years later.

He was ill when he wrote the book.

Thank you.

Now, would you agree
that a good book by a good writer,

generally speaking, should not
repeat things again and again?

It's a tiresome habit, is it not?

Not necessarily.
Repetition can be used to
great literary and emotional effect.

There is a great deal of it
in the Bible.

I am talking about this book at the
moment. Have you a copy of it? Yes.

Could you look at page 177?

I will read it to you,
if the court will forgive

my miserable attempt to pronounce
the local dialect.

" 'Th'art good cunt, though,
aren't ter?

" 'Best bit o' cunt left on earth.
When ter likes! When tha'rt willin!'

" 'What is cunt?' she said.

" 'An' doesn't ter know? Cunt!' #

I need not go on reading.
Just glance down the page.

Cunt appears, fuck appears,
cunt appears, fuck appears,
all in the space of about 12 lines.

Is that a realistic conversation,
even between the gamekeeper
and the baronet's wife?

Is this a good piece of writing?

I don't think it's successful, but
I can see what he's trying to do.

I am not asking you what
he is trying to do!
Is it a good piece of writing?

Er, well, I think it's a failure.

You agree with me in this, that
in this book of such high merit,

there is at least one passage
of very low merit?

Yes... Thank you, Mr Hough.

Well, he made mincemeat out of him.

Mr Hough did seem to be
on the defensive, rather.

He left him in tatters, no contest.

I think he should have
stood up for that passage.

It's a playful sort of conversation,

between two lovers who know each
other very well?

He's teasing her, making a thing
about the class difference,
and she's playing up to it.

When she says, "What is...?"
You know - she's playing a game. Of
course she knows what it is, really.

But a lady would never say
that word. I think she might.

It's the middle classes that are
prudish about four-letter words.

The aristocracy use them just
as freely as the lower classes.
There you are.

Well, I don't like
having my nose rubbed in it.

What a curious thing to say.

It's only a book, after all.

Books can't harm you, can they?

I think that's what
we're here to decide.

About this particular book, I mean.

Yes, I suppose we are.

Miss Gardner,
you are Reader in Renaissance
Literature at Oxford University.

What do you think of DH Lawrence?

He is one of the greatest writers
of the 20th century.

You are not, I think,
an admirer of this particular book?

I think it's a remarkable book.

I don't think
it's a wholly successful novel,

although I think certain passages
are amongst the greatest things
that he ever wrote.

It has been said in court that the
four-letter words form the whole
subject matter for the prosecution,

and that the words fuck or fucking
occur not less than 30 times.

Now, what, in your view, is the
relation of the four-letter words
in this book to its literary merit?

I don't think any words are
disgusting or obscene in themselves.

It depends on the context,
and I would say that by the end
of the book Lawrence goes very far

to redeem this word and make
one feel that it is the only word
that the character could use.

By the time one gets to the last
page, one feels that this word has
taken on a great depth of meaning.

You said that certain passages
are some of the greatest
things that Lawrence wrote.

Which passages did you have in mind?

Some of the passages
which describe the sexual act

and some of the passages in which
the characters talk about sexual
relations between men and women.

Including four-letter words?

Yes. I think Lawrence succeeds, far
beyond expectation, in communicating
an experience of great importance

and great value, which very few
other writers have really attempted
with such courage and devotion.

Thank you.

Mr Griffith-Jones?

No questions, Your Honour.

So...she liked the dirty bits best!

Miss Helen Gardner, eh?
Wonder what she knows about it!

Must be more to her than meets the
eye! Your friend Mr Griffith-Jones
was rendered speechless.

Well, I'm not surprised,
old bird like that sticking
up for the dirty bits.

They're not dirty bits.

Oh, I beg your pardon.
What would you call them, then?

I can't remember how she put it.

She said those passages communicate
an experience of great importance,

and very few writers
have even attempted it.

And what's the point of that?

We all know...what it's like.

What's the point in going on
about it, except to get people
feeling fruity. Excuse me.

I call 'em dirty bits
cos that's what they are.

Sex doesn't have to be dirty.
Oh, pardon me, Vicar!

That's the whole thing what he's on
about in the book. I stand corrected!

D'you fancy a breath of fresh air?

All right.

Well.

Horrible man.

I liked it, when you told him off.

I didn't have the words
to do it properly.

I felt like smacking him one
on the nose.

I think people knew what you meant.

She was good, that woman.

Miss Helen Gardner.
It was brave of her.

Of course people are going to say,
"What does she know about it,
an old spinster like that?"

Yeah. I thought that too.

I liked what you said.

Were you thinking about you and me?
Yeah.

And them in the book.

The first time me and you talked,
and you said, "It's only just sex,
isn't it?"

I thought that sounded
so sophisticated.

I was just trying to be smart.

Cos it's never only sex, though,
is it? I mean,

it's not really something
you can say "it's only" about.

There's always more to it than that.

It shakes you up.

Turns you inside out...sometimes.

Yes.

Mrs Bennett,
you're a Fellow of Girton College,

you teach young people,
you have children of your own.

What view do you think this book
puts forward about marriage?

That it should be
a complete relationship,
including the physical.

And that one party in the marriage
can go off and have affairs?

Lawrence believed
that if it was a complete sham, then
the marriage vows could be broken.

Oh, I see.

But in fact he shows the woman
breaking her marriage vows
without any compunction at all,

without even telling her husband.

And isn't that indeed
what Lawrence himself did?

He ran off with his friend's wife,
didn't he? Yes, he did, but...

And it's just this type of behaviour
that's depicted in this book?

A woman is shown... A man running
off with another man's wife!

The whole book is about that
subject, is it not? Adultery!

Infidelity! Without a hint
that there might be something
wrong in the act of adultery.

Without a hint that there might be
something dishonest, something cruel
about infidelity.

If you put it like that...
Thank you.

Mrs Bennett, it is clear from the
book that the husband told her to
go and have a child by another man.

Yes.

And I would like to add,
respecting Lawrence's own conduct,

that his own marriage
lasted the whole of his life.

What's the matter?

Nothing.
I thought you liked rissoles.

I do like rissoles.
I was just thinking.

Thinking what? Nah... No, go on.

I like to know what thoughts
are going on in the great brain.

I haven't got a great brain.

Sometimes I think I haven't
got a brain at all.

Well, that proves it,
doesn't it, thinking that?

That's a deep thought.

I don't think thoughts like that.
I just think thoughts like, "What
are we going to have for supper?"

What were you thinking about? I
was thinking...you know, DH Lawrence?

He ran off with his friend's wife.

I'm not surprised, what
I've heard about him.

They got married,
and they stayed married till he died.

I'm glad to hear it.

'Call the Bishop of Woolwich.'

Bishop,
what, if any, would you say, are the
moral or ethical values of this book?

Lawrence didn't have
a Christian view of sex,

and the sexual relationship
depicted in the book is not one
that I would regard as ideal,

but what I think Lawrence is trying
to do is to portray the sex act
as something essentially sacred.

Archbishop William Temple once...

Just a moment, Bishop,
I just want to get this right.

He was trying to portray
the sex relation...?

As something essentially sacred.
Yes, I thought that was it.

Go on. I was about to quote
Archbishop William Temple.

He once said that Christians
didn't make jokes about sex

for the same reason as they didn't
make jokes about Holy Communion -

not that it is sordid,
but because it is sacred.

And I think that is
how Lawrence saw it.

I see.

It has been suggested that Lawrence
places upon a pedestal promiscuous
and adulterous intercourse.

That seems a distorted way
of looking at it.

If the jury read the last two
pages, for example, there is a
most moving advocacy of chastity,

and I think the effect of the
book as a whole is against,
rather than for, promiscuity.

Bishop, are you asking the jury
to accept that this book
is a valuable work on ethics?

It doesn't set out to be
a work on ethics,
but it does have ethical values.

Is it, in your view, a book
which Christians ought to read?

Yes, I think it is.

No further questions.

Well,
I don't call him much of a bishop.

Never heard anything like it
in my life.

The man's obviously
some cranky fellow-travelling
toady to the intelligentsia.

I don't know where they found him.

There must be at least
two dozen bishops who wouldn't
give that book house-room.

I don't mind telling you,
I'm getting sick of it,
this parade of know-alls who,

one after another tie themselves
in knots trying to tell us that
what is obviously a dirty book

is something every boy and girl
should read.

What are you thinking?

I dunno.

I think maybe we should
stop doing this.

You're not tired of me already?

No.

Christ, no.

But, you know - Sylvia.
I don't want to hurt her.

You don't have to.

What she doesn't know can't
hurt her, can it? Suppose not.

What's she like - Sylvia?

I've known her so long,
it's hard for me to say.

She's pretty.

Year younger than me. We were going
out together when she was 14 and
I was 15. Childhood sweethearts.

Yeah, if you like.

D'you have good sex with her?

Yeah. You know, it's all right.

You don't have to answer me,
it's none of my business.

Yeah...it's fine, but, you know,

I think we had our best moments
a long time ago, maybe even
before we did it properly.

It was so exciting,
getting to know each other,

all that wrestling, getting to
first base, second base, third base.

She made me struggle for it,

but it was like, I dunno, discovering
hidden treasure, all bit by bit,
each bit better than the last bit.

All that went on for months, years.

It sounds nice.

An old-fashioned courtship. Yeah.

Yeah, it was, I suppose.

Not like him and her in the book.
Or you and me. No.

What about you?
What was he like, your husband?

Ray? I suppose you'd have to
call him a charming bastard.

He was married to someone else
when I met him. Couldn't resist him.

He was very good at all that,
very good at sex as well.

Not very good at paying the bills,
not very good at telling the truth.

I had a lot of fun with him.

Actually, I adored him.

It took me years to realise
he was a cold-hearted bastard

who didn't really give a damn
about anyone but himself.

Thank God we never had a child.

Did he go with other women?

I should say so.

Mind you, I had affairs too.

He didn't mind,
because he didn't care.

I pretended to be happy,
even to myself, I think.

And then I stopped pretending.

So you're not happy?

Oh, I've got nothing
to complain about.

I'm over him now.
Much better off without him.

I don't even hate him any more.

Am I the first since
you split up with him? No.

The best, though.

We're not going to stop this,
are we? Not yet, anyway?

No.

I don't think I could.

Nor me.

Call Richard Hoggart.

Mr Hoggart, would you tell
us a little about yourself?

I was born into the
working class, in Leeds.

I went to the local elementary
school, and won a scholarship
togrammar school,

and then went on to university where
I took an English degree.

A background rather like
Lawrence's own, then.

Lawrence didn't go to
university, he went to a
teacher's training college.

And perhaps there's something
particular about a Nottinghamshire
mining village upbringing.

We're not all the same, us working
class lads, you know. No, indeed.

And you are now a Senior Lecturer in
English at Leicester University,

and you lecture on Lawrence to the
young
people under your care. Yes, I do.

This book, Lady Chatterley's Lover,
has been described in Court

as little more than vicious
indulgence in sex and sensuality.

Is that a valid
description of the book?

Not at all. It is not vicious.

It is highly virtuous,
and if anything puritanical.

Did you say...

virtuous and puritanical? Yes, sir.

I believe it's a very moral book.

In fact, you could say that the
physical, sexual side is not
that important to Lawrence.

I know that sounds paradoxical.

What Lawrence is interested in
is a relationship which is,
in the deepest sense, spiritual.

It's a kind of sacrament for him.

So what exactly do you mean
by saying that this is a moral book?

I mean that the overwhelming
impression I get, as a careful
reader,

is of the enormous reverence which
must be paid by one human being to
another in a physical relationship.

These relationships are not
matters in which we use
each other like animals.

This spirit seems to me to pervade
the book throughout,

and so I would call the book highly
moral and not at all degrading of
sex.

And the four-letter words
have been referred to. What is your
view on them?

They are part of the normal
discourse of many people,
and not only working class people.

They are used very freely indeed
in everyday life.

50 yards from the court this
morning I heard a man say "fuck"
three times as he passed me.

He said, "Fuck it, fuck it,
fuck it!" as he went past.

If you have worked
on a building site, as I have, you
will hear it over and over again.

The word is used in contempt,
of course, as a term of abuse.

Lawrence wanted to re-establish
its proper use. Which is?

As the word for the sexual act.

We have no word in English
for it that isn't either a
long abstraction,

or a euphemism, and we're constantly
running away from it, or dissolving
into dots, in a passage like this.

Lawrence wanted us to say,
"This is what one does."

In a simple, ordinary way, one
fucks - with no sniggering or dirt.

One fucks.

I wonder, Mr Hoggart, do you belong
to that body of people who oppose
all prosecutions for obscenity?

Not at all. But I do resent the
fact that ordinary men and women
should be prevented

from reading a serious book by a
great writer who
has something of importance to say.

I see.

Now, you described this book as
"highly virtuous,
if not puritanical".

That is your genuine and
considered view, is it? Yes, it is.

Well, perhaps I've spent my whole
life under a misapprehension of the
meaning of the word "puritanical".

Can you enlighten me?

Yes. Many people live their lives
under the same misapprehension.

This is the way
that language decays.

Today, the word has been extended to
mean someone who's against anything
pleasurable, particularly sex.

Its true meaning is somebody who
belongs to the tradition of British
Puritanism,

and the defining feature
of that is an intense sense of
responsibility for one's conscience.

In this sense, the
book is puritanical.

I am obliged to you
for that lecture.

In fact, one could say...
JUDGE MOANS

Mr Hoggart, I don't want to stop
you if you have something further to
say,

but the question I want to ask you
is quite a simple one to answer
without another lecture.

We are not at Leicester
University at the moment.

Now I want to see more precisely
what you describe as "puritanical".

Would you look at page
222 of the book?

Lady Chatterley is drying her
hair in front of the fire,
after one of their bouts,

when he took her, and I quote,
"like an animal.

"He stroked her tail with his hand,

"long and subtly taking in the
curves and the globefulness.

" 'Tha's got such a nice tail on
thee.

" 'It's the nicest,
nicest woman's arse as is.

" 'An' ivery bit of it is woman,
woman, sure as nuts.

" 'Thart not one of them button
arsed lasses as should be lads,
are ter!

" 'Tha's got a real soft sloping
bottom on thee, as a man loves in
'is guts.' "

Is that a passage you
would describe as "puritanical"?

Yes, puritanical, and poignant,
and tender.

"All the while he spoke he
exquisitely stroked the rounded
tail,

"till it seemed as if
a slippery sort of fire
came from it into his hand.

"And his fingertips touched the two
secret openings to her body,

"time after time, with a soft little
brush of fire." Is that puritanical?

Yes, indeed it is.

I see. " 'An' if tha shits
an' if tha pisses, I'm glad.

" 'I don't want a woman as couldna
shit nor piss.' "
Is that puritanical? Yes, it is.

" 'Here tha shits and here
tha pisses an' I lay my hand on
'em both and I like thee for it.

" 'I like thee for it.
Tha's got a proper
woman's arse, proud of itself.

" 'It's none ashamed of itself,
this isna."

"He laid his hand close and firm
over her secret places,
in a kind of close greeting."

And that is puritanical, is it?

In my view, it is puritanical,
and poignant, and tender.

Do you feel puritanical?

Not really. Tell you the truth, I
didn't have the faintest idea what
he was talking about, that man.

He was saying that sex is like a
sacrament, or it was for Lawrence

and for Mellors and Lady Chatterley.

What's that got to do with Lawrence?

That Bishop said that
Lawrence wasn't even a Christian.

I think he worshipped his penis.
I think most men do, actually.

The stuff you come out with.

Well, it's true, isn't it?
I don't worship my...penis.

No, but you follow it
where it leads, don't you?

Is that what happened
with me and you?

Isn't it?

Look, it's stirring,
I think it overheard us.

John Thomas.

That chap was wrong, wasn't he?

Lawrence wasn't all for
plain speaking, not altogether.

Mellors has a pet name for it -
his penis is John Thomas
and her vagina's Lady Jane.

When he's weaves flowers through
her pubic hair, and she winds
creeping Jenny round his penis.

Would you like me
to do that for you?

If you like.

I think we should try out everything
they try out, don't you? All right.

Not many forests round here, though.

We'll have to improvise.

Meanwhile...

D'you like this?

Yeah.

Sylvia won't do anything like this.
She says it's dirty.

Poor Sylvia.

I'll have to write
her a little note,

tell her what she's missing.

PANTING

I wish...

What?

It could be just you and me.

That's what he said in the book.

But
the world's so full of other people.

Old Parker was in a
right mood today. Was he?

Yeah. Taking it out on everyone.

Just because he's the boss,
he thinks he can carry on like
a two year old in a tantrum.

Nasty old bugger.
Yeah. What can you do, though?

I tell you what I do.

I look at the clock, and I think, in
two hours' time, or whatever it is,

I'll be home, with somebody who's so
much nicer than you, you old bugger.

Well, look at you.
I was only paying you a compliment!

Well, who'd have thought it? What?

You and I together
in bed, like this.

And all thanks to DH Lawrence.

Actually,
I've decided I'm not that keen on DH
Lawrence or his gamekeeper.

Why's that, then? He's always
telling her things, going on at her.

This is how life ought to be,
this is what's wrong with women,

this is what I like and don't like.

And when they make love,
it's always him in charge.

I thought that's what you all like.
Well, you're wrong.
Anyway, you're not like that.

I might be, given the chance.

I don't think so.
And you've got a sense of humour.

When you really think about it,
it's not a great book at all,

it's a lot of preaching and
bullying and wishful thinking.

It got you going, though.
Yes, I know, and I'm so ashamed.

Anyway, it wasn't the
book that got me going,

it was you, with your bedroom eyes.

I'd never have thought
those wicked thoughts about
any of those other men.

What's so special about me?

Oh, now he's fishing
for compliments!

But I'll tell you. It's your
innocence. I'm not that innocent.

Yes, you are,
you're innocent, like an animal.

There's no guile about you.

And from the first look, I
could tell you really want it,

all of it.

I don't think most men do,

they just pretend they do,

or they really want something else -

power usually...

to get you where they want you.

So I'm different, am I?

Yes, you are.

You make me happy.

I call Mr Francis Cammaerts.

Call Mr John Connell.

Miss Sarah Beryl Jones.

Mr Norman St John Stevas.

I call Dr James Hemming.

Mr Francis Williams.

Call Anne Scott-James

Mr Raymond Williams.

Call Mr CK Young.

Call Mr Iain Foster.

Dr CV Wedgwood.

I call Sir Stanley Unwin.

Professor Kenneth Muir.

Mr Cecil Day-Lewis.

Call Miss Dilys Powell.

Mr Walter Allen.

Call Mr Roy Jenkins.

Mr Stephen Potter.

Call Miss Janet Adam-Smith.

Mr Noel Annan.

Mr Hector Hetherington.

Mr Hetherington, you are
editor of the Manchester Guardian,

and a member of the Royal
Commission on the Police.

Would you tell us what you would
say is the theme or meaning
of Lady Chatterley's Lover?

Well, the importance of the
book to me

was as an exposition of the beauty
and goodness of physical love
at its best...

JUDGE GROANS

..of the redeeming power of sex,
and the importance of tenderness.

Thank you.

No questions.

Mr Gardener, it is in my mind that
the jury may be wondering how
much longer this is going to go on.

How many more
witnesses may we expect?

My Lord, I intend
to call no witnesses.

Mr Gardiner? My Lord, I have another
36 witnesses waiting to testify to
the merit of Lady Chatterley's Lover,

but in view of my learned friend's
indication that there will be no
witnesses for the prosecution,

I propose to call only one more
witness.

Call Miss Bernadine Wall.

Miss Wall, you've just come
down from Cambridge? That's right.

And you're writing a
novel yourself, I gather.

Yes. And you have read
Lady Chatterley's Lover?

Yes. I read it first in an
expurgated edition, then more
recently as Lawrence wrote it.

And what's your opinion of
the unexpurgated version?

It was much better.
It gave a positive contrast.

The love affair contrasted with
the deadness of the industrial
society he was describing.

It held out a hope that this was
not all, that there was some way
out of this drab, daily existence.

Thank you.

Now, as to the four-letter words in
the book, had you known them before
you read the book? Yes, of course.

From what sort of age?
My Lord, what has this to do with
the literary merit of the book?

Very little, I should think.

My Lord, I'll withdraw the question.

And while I am on my feet, my Lord,

might I ask whether anybody who has
just come down from Cambridge can
be tendered as a literary expert?

She has started to write a novel.

So she has, my Lord. I suppose
we must all start somewhere.

Carry on, Mr Gardiner. From the
point of view of literary merit,

how does this book compare with
others you have read,

in its treatment of human relations,
including sexual relations?

It treats that relationship
with great dignity.

More so, I think, than any
novel I have ever read.

Thank you, Miss Wall.

No questions.

Fuck. Fucking.

That was a lovely fuck.

I love your cock in my cunt.

Go on.

Now you say something.

I love the feel of your...

Go on.

Cunt round my cock.
No, I don't like it.

I mean, I like it, but I
don't like saying it out loud like
that, it's like talking dirty.

And what's wrong with talking dirty?

I bet you don't normally
use words like that.

Yes, you're right.

But I can with you.

Why's that?
Because I'm a bit of rough?

You're not a bit of rough, Keith.

I think you're rather
more respectable than me.

What I meant was...

..this is our own little world here,

we can say what we like. Yeah.

Suppose so.

I know it's not easy
to say those words,

but it felt all right just then.

It felt truthful.

And I think DH Lawrence would
have thoroughly approved of me.

And you must have liked it.

Tell you the truth...

..I was a bit shocked to
hear that from a woman.

You were, weren't you?

You're so sweet.

What?

What's the matter?

I don't like being patronised,
that's what's. I wasn't. Truly.

You don't think of me as equal,
that's why it's all so easy for you.
Well, if you're going to sulk...

I'm not sulking, I'm
just saying what's true.

This is all a game for you.
I'm just...an amusement to you,

and when jury service is over, that's
it, off you'll go, never a backward
look.

What was your plan? To dedicate
the rest of your life to me?

You're the one who's
married, after all.

Do you want to stop this now?
Because you can if you like.

No. I don't want to stop. Then let
me say what I was going to just now.

These times with you,

they've been the best
times I've had since...

..I don't know when.

You make me happy.

I love...

I love making love with you.

Fucking.

Yes. Fucking.

Yeah, you're right.

That's what it is.

Why call it anything else?

Fucking.

Cock. Cunt.

You know what?
You've got a wonderful cunt.

Well, I think it's probably
quite an ordinary cunt,

but it's all for you. This week.

This week for certain,

after that, who knows?

I think we should make
the most of it. Don't you?

She made me feel like...a God or
something.

When we were in her little flat,

it felt like we had the
whole world in there.

The funny thing was...

..it didn't make me go
off Sylvia or nothing.

I felt so...

happy, strong...

..confident.

I thought,

"What's wrong
with a man having two women?"

Well, we really do have
a mixed jury tonight.

Let's have the first record.

MUSIC: "Blue Angel" by Roy Orbison

What you looking at?
See anything you like?

Yeah. Want to do anything about it?

Yeah.

Don't mind if I do.

It's not nine o'clock yet.

I don't care. Neither do I, then.

Come on. Let's get this off.
No, I'll be cold. No, you won't.

That's it.

That's nice, that is.

And this is nice.

And this is.

Hey, I don't like that.
Shush. You will.

I promise. Let me.

No, leave off. Keith!

SOBBING

What's the matter?

What is it?
Come on, Sylve. Turn round.

Don't touch me, you bastard!
Come on, Sylve. What's the matter?
You know what's the matter! What?

You've got another woman, haven't
you? How could I have another woman?

I don't know,
but you have, haven't you?

You've got another woman
and you do that with her!

Oh, come on, Sylve, don't cry.
Get off me! It's true, isn't it?

It's true!

Yes, it's true.

Oh, Christ. Look... I don't
want to know anything about it!

I don't want to know
anything about her!

You can go to her if you like!

Just leave me alone, that's all!

Members of the jury,

this case has lasted several days,

and you have listened to a great deal
of evidence and argument with
great patience and close attention.

You have heard a great
number of witnesses
testify to the merit of this book,

and not one of them

thought it liable to deprave
or corrupt.

And what has the
prosecution produced?

Not one single witness has been found

to come to court to say anything
against Lawrence, or his book.

The prosecution has made a point of
reminding you that this is a book
published at three and sixpence,

and thus affordable to anybody.

There is a suggestion that it might
be all right if it were published
as an expensive limited edition,

not for the common man or woman.

My learned friend asks,
"Is it a book you would even wish
your wife or your servants to read?"

Now, I don't want to upset the
prosecution by suggesting

that there are nowadays some people
who don't have servants.

But isn't everybody, whether earning
£10 a week, or £20 a week,

equally interested in the
society in which we live...

..and equally involved in the
problems of relationships,

including sexual relationships?

And shouldn't wives be allowed
to read about these things,
as well as their husbands?

And isn't it time

we rescued Lawrence's name

from the quite
unfair reputation it has had,

and allow our people...

..his people -

to judge for themselves?

Members of the jury...

..I leave Lawrence's reputation,

and the reputation
of Penguin Books...

..in your hands.

Members of the jury,
as you will now know,

this case is one of immense
importance, with huge and
far-reaching consequences.

In a matter of such gravity, I do
not propose to waste your time
by answering debating points.

It is easy enough to poke fun at the
prosecution, especially in a case of
this kind,

but I am not going to
refer to any such matters.

Now, my learned friend has examined
a number of witnesses in
support of the book.

Who have we had? Bishops,
prebendaries, other clergymen,

school teachers, a fashion editor,
even a young girl who has
just started her first novel.

All under the guise of
literary experts.

I know that you will not
be browbeaten by evidence
given by these people.

You will judge this
as ordinary people,

your feet on the ground, reading
this book and judging it according
to your own moral standards.

And there must be
standards, must there not?

There must be some restraint,
or the floodgates will open.

"A book of moral purpose,"
one witness called it.

What moral purpose?

If your husband can't satisfy you,
go and copulate with other men
until you find someone who can.

Isn't that what a young person
reading the book would take from it?

Remember that you, and you alone,
are the sole judge of
the facts in this case.

And in this context,

I would ask your forgiveness
for referring you to a passage
on page 246.

It is a passage that has not
previously been referred to
during this trial.

It is that passage which describes
what is called "the night
of sensual passion".

"It was a night of sensual passion,
in which she was a little startled
and almost unwilling.

"Though a little frightened,
she let him have his way."

Not very easy, you know,
to know what he is driving at
in that passage.

"And the reckless,
shameless sensuality

"shook her to her foundations,
stripped her to the very last,
and made a different woman of her.

"Burning out the shames,
the deepest, oldest shames,
in the most secret places.

"It cost her an effort to let him
have his way and his will of her."

One wonders why, with all the
experiences that had gone before.

"It took some getting at, the core
of the physical jungle, the last and
deepest recess of organic shame."

I don't know. Is this stuff having a
good influence on the young reader?

Members of the jury, do you not
think this book has a false
conception

of what proper
thought and conduct ought to be?

In a time when some proper
conception is so badly needed?

I submit to you that
there can be but one answer.

Members of the jury, we are
approaching the end of this case,

to which you have listened with
the greatest care and attention.

I propose that we adjourn until
tomorrow, when I will sum up the
evidence,

and you will retire
to consider your verdict.

All rise!

Let off a bit early today, then!

Time off for good behaviour!

See you in the morning. Right-o.

Evening.

What's the matter?

See that? All right for some, eh?

Well, I was quite surprised
at Griffith-Jones today.

"The night of sensual passion!"

I didn't get what he was on about.

Really? Didn't you? I didn't get it.

He was talking about buggery, Keith.

Was he?

That's what homos do, isn't it?
Well, not just homos, actually.

Bloody hell.

You mean, you?

It was something Ray
was rather keen on.

I didn't actually
care for it very much.

Bloody hell.

Ain't it against the law?

What's wrong? Sylvia knows.

You told her? She just sort of knew.
I couldn't deny it. I've never
been any good at telling lies.

No.

What did you tell her about me?
Nothing. She didn't want to know.

She's all upset.

That's why you nearly
didn't come today. Yeah.

But you did come.

I couldn't help myself.

Well, since you are here...

You don't have to.

I want you to.

I want us to do everything they did.

I want to give you
everything she gave him.

I want you to give me
everything he gave her.

"She had to be a passive,
consenting thing,
like a slave, a physical slave.

"Yet the passion
licked round her, consuming,

"and when the sensual flame of it
pressed through her bowels and
breast, she thought she was dying.

"She often wondered what Abelard
meant, when he said that in their
year of love,

"he and Heloise had
passed through all the stages
and refinements of passion.

"She felt, now, she had come to
the real bed-rock of her nature,

"and was essentially shameless."

Stay with me.

Please?

In a bleak warehouse
near London Airport,

tens of thousands of copies of Lady
Chatterley's Lover are being packaged
up and made ready for delivery.

It's in the hands of the jury.

Will they go on sale or be pulped?

Members of the jury, you are
the sole judges of the facts.

As we all know, these days the
world seems to be full of experts.

But our criminal law is based on
the view that the jury takes of the
facts,

and not the view that
experts say you should take.

You've got to look at the book as
one you yourselves might have bought
for three shillings and sixpence,

and then you must ask yourselves
the question, "Does it tend
to deprave and corrupt?"

Now, you have been told
that it is a moral tract,

and a book that
Christians should read.

But what do you think?

What is the story?

A woman has sexual intercourse
before she is married,

and then, after she is married,
commits adultery with
someone called Michaelis,

and then proceeds to have
adulterous intercourse with
her husband's gamekeeper.

And that is
described, you may think,

in the most lurid way.

If you have any reasonable doubt
whether it has been proved to your
satisfaction

that the tendency of
this book is to deprave and corrupt
morals, of course you will acquit.

On the other hand,
if you are satisfied that the book

does have a tendency to deprave
and corrupt, of course you
will not hesitate to say so.

Now, a vast number of
witnesses have been called.

But you are not governed by the
opinions they have expressed.

You are the judges of the matter.

You might think that some of them
proceeded on the basis,

this is a book by Lawrence,
therefore this is a good book.

You must make up your
own minds about that.

So, if you'd be kind enough to
retire and consider your verdict and
tell me how you find.

All rise!

Well, who'd like to start us off?

Well, I'd say guilty. If that's not
a dirty book, I don't know what is.

I mean, a laugh's a laugh, but I
don't mind saying I found it
quite shocking in parts.

And as to literary merit?

I don't think it's clever sticking
in those four-letter words in.

My dad used to say swearing was the
sign of an impoverished vocabulary.

I agree with him.
I think it should be banned.

The judge seemed to think
we should return a guilty verdict.

He also said we didn't
have to follow his opinion.

True. It's interesting that
the prosecution didn't
call any expert witnesses.

They didn't need any.
It's like the judge said.

I think it's rather more likely
that they couldn't find any.

You think it should be banned.

Do you really think it might
deprave or corrupt anybody?

That's not the point. It should be
banned on grounds of public decency.

It's exactly as the
prosecution put it.

Publish this and you've opened the
floodgates, you've opened the way
for any kind of filthy rubbish.

We'll be poisoning the minds
of our own children,
and generations to follow.

Is this what we
want the 1960s to be?

Is this what we fought
two world wars for,
the freedom to publish dirty books?

But this isn't a dirty book!

There's nothing dirty about sex.

It's natural, isn't it?

And I don't like the idea of anyone
telling me what I'm allowed to
read and not allowed to read.

And I don't want to be the one to
tell anyone else, except my own kids,

and they're grown up now anyway, and
they can choose for themselves. Cos
that's what we're here for, isn't it,

to say if other people can read it?

Well, it hasn't done any
of us any harm, has it?

I wonder if it has.

Do any of us think that we have
been depraved or corrupted
by reading Lady Chatterley's Lover?

Well, who'd answer yes to a
question like that?

That is the question
we are asked to answer.

And perhaps the best way to answer
it is to ask ourselves, have I been
depraved or corrupted by this book?

We've been picked at random -
12 ordinary men and women.

If the book has a tendency
to deprave and corrupt,

then it's likely, isn't it, that
it would have had that effect on us,

or at least some of us. So, has it?

Well, I don't know about
anyone else, but I've been a
bit...you know...shook up by it.

Reading this book, I feel like
I might be missing out on things,
you know...sex and that.

I don't mean to say I've
never had it or anything,

but not like in the book.

And it sort of makes you think,

"Maybe I should," sort of thing,
but I don't suppose I ever shall.

Is that depraved and corrupted?
I wouldn't have thought so.
Wouldn't you?

I think our friend here has
put his finger on something.
What it is is this,

the man who wrote this book
is saying sex is everything,

and any kind of behaviour is
justified in the
search for sex, sex, and more sex!

He's saying it's perfectly fine
for women to behave like whores
before marriage and in marriage,

it's perfectly fine to hold your
marriage vows with contempt,
all for the sake of sex.

He's telling us
that we should indulge and satisfy
our appetites like farmyard animals!

If that's not depraving and
corrupting, I don't know what is!

All he's doing is asking
us to think about our lives.

And what result has that
had in your case, may I ask?

Or perhaps I don't need to ask.

I wouldn't say I'd been
depraved or corrupted
by Lady Chatterley's Lover,

but I would say
I've been affected by it.

But that's not a bad thing,
that's a good thing, isn't it?

He's challenging us
to look at our lives.

He's saying that some things are
so...

special,

they're worth
sacrificing anything for.

And sex...really good sex...
is such a strong thing,

it just smashes up your whole life
and puts it together in a different
way.

If you find that passion
and tenderness with someone...

..you have to follow it.

That's what he's saying.

But you can't just live
your whole life like that.

Maybe Lawrence could, but we can't.

I mean, you'd just burn yourself
up...

..wouldn't you?

Wouldn't it be worth it?

They're coming back.

Members of the jury, are you
agreed upon your verdict? We are.

Do you find that Penguin Books are
guilty or not guilty of
publishing an obscene article?

Not guilty.

CHEERING AND APPLAUSE

Silence in court!

Silence in court!

Silence in court!

I still don't know
whether we done the right thing.

Not the verdict -
I mean, me and Helena.

It was thinking about Sylvia and
the baby coming, that and thinking,

"Well, like Helena said -
sex isn't everything."

Maybe I was wrong.

But in a funny sort of way,

I think it was good for us,
me and Sylvia, I mean.

Not at first, of course.

A bit rough at first,

but we stayed together.

It seems funny now,

all that passion.

All such a long time ago.

Yes, I married again,
to a very nice man indeed.

He died three years ago.
We were very happy.

I was very lucky.

But the most intense, the most
important experience of my
life, I'd have to say,

But the most intense, the most
important experience of my
life, I'd have to say,

was that week of sex,
that week of love I had with Keith.

My Chatterley affair.

The time now is five minutes to 12,
to zero hour, because here in this
bookshop in the heart of London,

Lady Chatterley goes on sale at
12 noon sharp.

So let's wait and see how the
rush develops and see what happens.

One copy only.

Thank you.

Two, please. One only. Only one.

Why are you buying a copy?
Just to see what it's about.

Why do you want a copy?

We've heard so much about it, I just
want to have a look. How about you?

I shall be doing a course on
the modern novel at university.

Why do you want a
copy of Lady Chatterley?

How about you? Just to find
out what it's all about.

Why do you want a copy?
I'm buying it for somebody else.

You're buying it for somebody else?

Why do you want a copy?
For my wife. For your wife?

Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd