Newly arrived in Ramsdale, New Hampshire, European emigre Humbert Humbert is smitten. He plans to marry Charlotte Haze. That way he'll always be close to his dear one -- Charlotte's precocious daughter!

Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick explores the theme of sexual obsession (a subject he would revisit 37 years later in Eyes Wide Shut) with this darkly comic and deeply moving version of Vladimir Nabokov's novel.

James Mason plays devious, deluded Humbert: wedded to needy Charlotte (Shelley Winters); rivaled by the ubiquitous Clare Quilty (chameleonlike Peter Sellers); and enraptured to his gelatinous core by the blithe teen (Sue Lyon) with that "lovely, lyrical, lilting name" -- Lolita.