Anna Karenina (1948)
(On Cable TV, March 2020) It’s a gift to cinephiles to see so many adaptations of a few classic novels—especially when they’re released within a few years. So it is that Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina had two high-profile English-language adaptations in 1935 and 1948, forever begging for comparative pieces. I won’t quite do that here—not having read the novel is a handicap, and at some point, most black-and-while period dramas sort of blur into each other. Still, a back-to-back viewing of both versions shows that if the British 1948 one doesn’t have Greta Garbo, it does have a wonderful Vivien Leigh in the title role. The rest of it is a very respectable adaptation, once again focusing on the romantic tragedy of Karenina rather than the myriad subplots. (Some of the ensuing plot shortcuts can be confounding, but that’s the way it goes.) Anna Karenina is, in many ways, very Russian: winter, ballet, ill-fated protagonists and a shrug at the capriciousness of fate. I prefer this version to the prior one, what with a better use of exteriors, more confident directing and more expansive storytelling. Some of this reflects technical progress accomplished during a thirteen-year period—but some of it is due to writer-director Julien Duvivier’s approach to the material—and perhaps the influence of crowd-pleasing producer Alexander Korda. There’s some good control over the material, whether it’s the technical aspects of recreating historical Russia, the costumes, or the very good execution of the final scene. This being said, Anna Karenina does remain a costume drama, and one executed with late-1940s means. Modern viewers, if they’re just looking into checking out the story, may want to ease themselves into it by watching the 2012 version—maybe not quite as good as the early ones, but certainly more technically accomplished.