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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 27375
Released: September 6, 2005 |
| Our Price: $12.17 |
| Used Price: $2.94 |
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MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Anna Karenina, dutiful wife and doting mother, knows contentment but not passion. That changes when she meets ardent Count Vronsky. For him, she throws away marriage, family, social position and finally her life. Leo Tolstoy's novel receives sumptuous treatment in David O. Selznick's production. The cast - including Fredric March (as Vronsky), Basil Rathbone, Maureen O'Sullivan and Freddie Bartholomew - is stellar under the direction of Clarence Brown. But the soul of the film is Greta Garbo in a nuanced performance that won the New York Film Critics Best Actress Award. At the height of her art, Garbo is unforgettable as a woman helpless in love's thrall and heartbroken at the loss of her son. Her final scene will haunt you.
Description of Anna Karenina (1935):
Garbo won two consecutive New York Film Critics Awards for best actress in this and Camille--an altogether more satisfying selection. At 95 minutes, this handsome David O. Selznick production for MGM hasn't a prayer of doing justice to the rich supporting cast of characters in Tolstoy's thick novel (notably Kitty, through no fault of the perky Maureen O'Sullivan). That was equally true of Clarence Brown's 1927 silent version Love (1927), also starring Garbo, but it was both more passionate and more fluid; Brown's direction here gathers no momentum within scenes or in the film overall. Garbo's quiet "Too late, too late," as she realizes early on what a tragedy her obsessive love affair must lead to, is exquisitely doomed; but Fredric March makes a tiresome, even petulant, Vronsky. It's a measure of the film's misdirection that Basil Rathbone, icy-cold as the careerist husband Karenin, inspires more sympathy. At least he's entertaining. --Richard T. Jameson
Anna Karenina (1935) Reviews:
Worth it just to see Garbo 
2009-08-04 - No one expects a film to accurately represent a Tolstoy novel, so it's best just to take it on its own merits, and enjoy it. However it really should have been longer than it was. That would have made the romance between Anna and Vronsky more believable as well as the eventual demise of their passion. Here it all happens so quickly that we almost don't get enough time to fully engage with the characters.
Garbo makes it all worthwhile, though. She is stunningly magnificent here -- I think more beautiful than in many of her other films. Besides her very lovely physical beauty, her charm and naturalness, especially in the early scenes with her family, are winning. No wonder Vronksy fell in love with her at first sight.
Casting Frederich March as Vronsky seems like a mistake to me, but perhaps he was considered a heart-throb at the time. To my eyes, he is stiff, a bit pudgy and just not very attractive. Perhaps if more time had been given to the buildup of the romance we might have seen what Anna saw in him, but here we just have to take it on faith. Basil Rathbone, as the passionless husband, actually stirred up more excitement, although in a negative way. His scene with their son, Sergei, (Freddie Bartholomew) was quite moving.
I loved the opening scene of the fantastic banquet and the drinking contest, also the ball, (the Mazurka was wonderful), and the opera was a hoot! The scenes at the train station, in the snow, are appropriately chilling. So much drama has happened on European trains in those wonderful old stations. The settings and costumes are all splendid.
I think that, for me, the enjoyment of the film rests in the wonderful sets and the sight of the magnificent Garbo. We all know the story, so it was just a matter of seeing it unfold....here, rather abruptly.
BEWARE! THIS IS NOT THE GARBO VERSION 
2008-11-07 - As the illustration clearly shows, the Cliff Notes version is the one starring Vivien Leigh, not Greta Garbo. The single star rating does not apply to the quality of either movie, but exists to call attention to this mistake.
Anna Karenina 
2007-11-25 - Another Greta Garbo great! Fredrick March and Freddie Bartholomew are equally as great. Greta Garbo plays doomed Anna Karenina. Bored with her cold husband she turns her attention to Count Vronsky she eventually runs away with him. Her powerful husband makes her choose between her lover and her child. Her choice dooms her in the end.
Overated missed opportunity 
2007-06-29 - In the Garbo canon, this film surely must rate as the biggest missed opportunity of her career. All the ingredients should have contributed to a memorable film but after a good start, it just doesn't happen.
Maybe it is the short running time. A sweeping novel has been understandably truncated but Anna's relationship with Vronsky is not sufficiently developed so their passion is unconvincing. A number of scenes don't lead anywhere e.g. Kitty's marriage scene.
Maybe it's the cast. Basil Rathbone as her husband rises to Garbo's level, superbly generating some sympathy within a stern and cold character and Reginald Owen is excellent as her brother. Freddie Bartholomew is awful with his acting school diction and delivery. Fredric March starts well, dashing and magnetic, but becomes mechanical and unconvincing as the film develops. Maureen O'Sullivan, no one's idea of a Russian or Garbo's sister, overacts in a simpering and cloying manner.
Maybe it's the script and direction. The first 20 minutes are by far the best with a terrific scene when March and his colleagues drink and eat and as the film moves to the memorable introduction of Garbo through the steam of a train and shows her empathy and warmth as she deals with her errant brother. From there, it is a gradual downhill slide plodding along lugubriously and generating little passion. It is as if everyone ran out of interest, even Garbo.
Maybe it was the censorship which caused so many of these problems. Anna Karenina is an adulteress so it is likely that any scenes of real passion would have been curtailed.
The print of the film has not been restored and is dirty with white lines appearing often. At least one scene is missing as noted by another reviewer and there are no extras except the original trailer. Unless the film is purchased as part of one of the Garbo collections, it is not good value.
a classics illustrated comic book would give you a better impression of tolstoy 
2007-03-21 - garbo is radiant but there is no other reason to watch this highly abridged telling of tolstoys novel. while im used to hollywood (by necessityt) removing whole sections of a loooong book, this is incomprehensible to anyone who hasnt some previous acquaintance with the story. even the usually reliable fredric march and basil rathbone (one of the greatest hams ever) cant save it.
