Women in Love

Alan Bates - Rupert Birkin
Oliver Reed - Gerald Crich
Glenda Jackson - Gudrun Brangwen
Jennie Linden - Ursula Brangwen
Eleanor Bron - Hermione Roddice
Alan Webb - Thomas Crich
Vladek Sheybal - Loerke

Women in Love is Ken Russell's adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's classic novel, though more famous for it’s nude wrestling scene between Reed and Bates than Russell’s direction.

Set in 1920s England, Gerald (Oliver Reed) and Rupert (Alan Bates) star as friends who fall in love with a pair of sisters, iron-willed artist Gudrun (Glenda Jackson), and her schoolteacher sister Ursula (Jennie Linden). The relationships take markedly different directions as the film explores the nature of commitment and love, Rupert and Ursula learn to give themselves to each other; the more withdrawn Gerald cannot, finally, connect with the demanding and challenging Gudrun. Gerald marries Gudrun, and together with Rupert and Ursula, the foursome embarks upon a Swiss honeymoon. Infidelity and sudden death mar the holiday when Gudrun engages in an affair with a sculptor, Loerke (Vladek Sheybal), the enraged Gerald flees into the snow and wanders until he dies. The death of his friend leaves a shocked Rupert to wonder aloud about the mystery of relations between men and women. The cinematography includes some fine landscapes, from the industrial north to the bright white Alps; but strong acting barely compensates for impersonal direction.