ANNA KARENINA

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 487, 22 October 1948, Page 24

ANNA KARENINA

(London Films) HERE is one_ pre-eminent and cogent reason for recommending Anna Karenina, and that is the brilliant acting of Sir Ralph Richardson in the part of Karenin, but the majority. of filmgoers, I su@pect, will have other (and somewhat less Tolstoyan) reasons for going along® Women, they say, determine the success of films, and I have no doubt that this one will be a howling success with them. I had to queue up with a covey to see a five o'clock screening, and when I finally got in I found myself completely hemmed in by a phalanx of females, all chattering away like machine guns. Someone behind me had discovered that she had dropped half a stitch (or something like that) and was complaining that she would have to go back to the top of the ribbing. In front the topic was Backstage With the Oliviers, on my left The Price of Meat, while two seats away on my right an intriguing anecdote

about a French sailor with decidedly Gallic manners was unfortunately cut off by the National Anthem® in the middle of a picaresque passage. It was scarcely the atmosphere in which to anticipate revelation, and as such it may have had something to do with my inability to take this latest Anna Karenina seriously, but there are deficiencies enough in the film itself. Mr. Beaton, for example, seemed to get between me and Tolstoy far too often. I’m prepared to concede the beauty of his costuming (though in a black-and-white film it doesn’t hit the male eye as effectively as it does in technicolour), but in a film of this kind it is a mistake to allow the camera to dwell so frequently and so long upon what are at best simply the trimmings. Nor was Vivien Leigh my idea of Anna. She was, I thought, altogether too demure, too sweet, and for the most part too restrained and self-possessed, She left her husband as if she were going shopping and in the end she suffered the Moscow Limited to run her down much as one would submit to a troublesome but necessary operation. It would

be ungallant-and inaccurate-to suggest that her characterisation is twodimensional, but she and Tolstoy’s Anna do not seem to have the same dimensions, affections, or passions-certainly uot the passions, anyway. With Richardson’s fine performance on the one hand to strike fire from her, her showing is disappointing and puzzling. With Kieron Moore in the part of Vronsky her failure is more understandable. This young Irishman, who showed himself to such advantage in Mine Own Executioner (Listener, 10/9/48), seems completely lost in the part of the ‘dashing but inconstant cavalry officer who seduces Anna’s affections and then abandons her. There are moments in the film when he seems to be in doubt about what is required of him next-the hesitation seems .almost physical at times-his lové-making is tepid, and his final scene with Anna thoroughly unconvincing. There is no edge to the part at all. Richardson’s Karenin, on thé other hand, looms larger than life. He is the centre of the action and the prime source and subject of the tragedy. Karenin’s

outbursts are shocking in their revelation of tortured pride, of convention-warped affection,: bewildered misery, and flayed nerves, but it is not simply in these outbursts that Richardson achieves his effects. There is not an unstudied gesture in his part, or a misplaced inflexion. With each succeeding part in which I see him, it. seems that he gains something in stature, but this time it is the full cubit. Tolstoy, I feel sure, would approve of his performance, and (I am equally sure) of his only. The film; of course, has many more commonplace virtues. It is admirably staged, it does seem to catch the atmosphere of imperial Russia, and the property department deserves congratulation, It is well and sometimes beautifully photographed, and Constant Lambert has devised incidental music which obtruded more pleasantly on my consciousness than incidental music usually does, But I did think there was a little too much commuting between Moscow and St. Petersburg, too much emphasis on trains, too many whistles. Psychopathology almost (but not quite) reared its ugly head.

BAROMETER FAIR: "Anna Karenina." MAINLY FAIR: "Berlin Express."