Stanley Kubrick's adaptation of Vladimir Nabokov's classic novel captures the author's black humor with ghoulish understatement. James Mason is deliciously cast as Humbert Humbert, the college professor who marries a lonely widow (Shelley Winters) purely out of lust for her adolescent daughter (Sue Lyon). Humbert Humbert's prurient passion is fed by its fetters--and Lolita's pubescent sexuality is aptly intimated (through the painting of toenails, and those famous sunglasses) rather than made explicit (this hilarious film would only suffer from a contemporary remake). Peter Sellers as Humbert's foil, Quilty, plays several characters in one--all delightfully sinister. Nabokov wrote the screenplay for this film that only grows better with time, and that, as an American satire, is as profound as the novel's unforgettable cross-country motel tour-de-farce.