Dotsthavesp I wanted to but couldn't!

Sexyloutak Absolutely the worst movie.

Dirtylogy It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Red-125 Anna Karenina (1935) was directed by Clarence Brown. The film is an excellent screen adaptation of Leo Tolstoy's great novel.The film stars Greta Garbo as Anna. Fredric March portrays Count Vronsky, and Basil Rathbone plays Karenin. March was a great actor, but I thought his Count Vronsky was too cold and unloving. Karenin is supposed to be cold and unloving. Basil Rathbone was a consummate actor, and his portrayal of Karenin was extraordinary.Greta Garbo was born to play this role. From the moment we see her features appear from within a cloud of steam, until the end of the movie, she's perfect. Of course, her beauty was fabled, but she also was a great actor. Anna Karenina was the perfect role for her, and she played it to perfection. There's no point in going on and on about Garbo. When you see the movie, you'll understand what I mean.It's interesting that director Brown was never considered to be among the elite directors of his day. However, he was Garbo's favorite director. The person introducing the movie told us that Garbo preferred him because (a) He knew how to film her to bring out her beauty and (b) he basically stood back and let her be Garbo.Even if Brown wasn't considered to be among the top directors of his time, the film he directed manages to convey the essence of Tolstoy's novel in 90 minutes. The novel is almost 1,000 pages long. Capturing this epic work in 90 minutes, complete with a long dance scene and a scene at the opera, is almost miraculous.We saw this film at the wonderful Dryden Theatre at the George Eastman Museum in Rochester, NY. We watched a 35mm print, restored at Eastman. Of course, this is how the movie was meant to be seen. However, it will work well enough on the small screen.I checked the IMDb list, and learned that Anna Karenina has been filmed over 30 times. (Actually, Garbo played Anna in an earlier silent film.) Clearly, it's a novel that works on the screen. As I write this review, Garbo's Anna Karenina has a respectable 7.1 rating on IMDb. There may be other Anna Karenina movies with a higher rating than that. Remember that this version stars Greta Garbo. In my opinion, it's an essential film for people who love literature and movies. Find it and enjoy it.

gavin6942 The married Anna Karenina (Greta Garbo) falls in love with Count Vronsky (Fredric March) despite her husband's refusal to grant a divorce, and both must contend with the social repercussions.Some have called this the perfect Garbo vehicle. I can see that. She is a star whose name and reputation exceed the films she is known for. (Ask someone if they have heard of Greta Garbo, and you will get "yes". Ask them to name a single film she was in and it might be quiet.) Here she is strong, as she should be. Garbo was never a damsel in distress.It does not hurt that she is surrounded with a good support network. Fredric March is, of course, wonderful. And one should never underestimate Basil Rathbone, though I think people often do.

Spondonman Of the handful of astounding or classic books I've read in my life Voltaire's Candide is top - and is apparently unfilmable. Tolstoy's Anna Karenina is another - and has been filmed many times but none of them coming anywhere near to doing the novel justice. This MGM Clarence Brown effort remains my favourite attempt, although at 92 minutes long it's still like seeing simplified and edited snapshots of the masterwork. Of the ones I've seen the 1948 UK version had a lot going for it but was just as edited, not as plush but if watched with the MGM can augment the experience; the 1967 Russian version was nearly 150 minutes long but almost laughable in it's hamminess and with dodgy English subtitles; the BBC 10 parter from 1977 was done on a low snoozy Sunday afternoon TV budget and it showed. I wonder if the 2012 entry is a cgi cartoon?Anna Karenin has a loveless marriage but dotes on her young son; dashing Count Vronsky a cavalry officer falls in love with her and vice versa – her husband disowns her leaving her to a life of shame and regret. It's expertly handled and amidst sumptuous Cedric Gibbons sets gives the viewer the gist of the simple perfection and satisfying elegance of the story. Only…here the big problem was they got Basil Rathbone as Karenin and Fredric March as Vronsky the wrong way round - Rathbone got the sympathy but also cut a far more interesting figure than March. Veronica Lake might have cast a witches spell on Greta Garbo to get her to fancy March! A lesser problem to me because understandable was that Levin and Kitty's tales were almost completely jettisoned, including the final part of the book for a rather lame and unnecessary mini-addendum by March and Reginald Owensky. And so what if Garbo occasionally over-acted, she was as usual suitably enigmatic. A truly valiant effort to film the book, and the one I recommend over the other versions to date.

kirksworks This is definitely worth seeing, but I prefer "Queen Christina" and "Ninotchka." I've seen many other versions of "Anna Karenina," and this, like the others, was rich with atmosphere, and in that regard this version surpasses them, but I'm not a big fan of Frederick March, who overacts. Garbo was splendid, as usual, but miscasting the lead actor opposite her is a problem that crops up in many of her films. Garbo's style was so romantically intense that few male stars of the time could work a scene with her believably. Her remarkable intensity tended to bring out over acting in her partners, who attempted to match her approach. But Garbo knew just when to turn it on and off, and how to twist a phrase at the end so the moment didn't become maudlin or corny. Her male co-stars just stumbled over themselves trying to reach her emotional peaks. Robert Taylor had that problem in "Camille," as did Ramon Novarro in "Mata Hari" to name two. John Gilbert, her co-star from many silent films, understood how she worked, and Melvyn Douglas, who took her on in "Ninotchka" managed to maintain his own low key acting style which was nicely offset against her specific qualities. Unfortunately, in "Anna" March is stiff and obvious, possessing none of the subtlety that Garbo managed to create in scene after scene, movie after movie. To condense this massive story down to an hour and a half is a crime. The Vivian Leigh version also cut many of Tolstoy's side plots and entire characters, but somehow it seemed less rushed. A much longer mini series has a weak Anna, but does have the entire story and all the characters. It's a massive book with many characters and to do it proper justice, a mini-series or long epic film is really necessary. Yet Garbo is always worth watching, even if the scenes she has with March don't have the power they should. The ending train scene is effective, and though it's been done better in other versions, none of the other versions have those expressive Garbo eyes that reach to the extreme depths of her soul. What a face! As one of MGM's glossy period dramas, the magnificent sets and costumes, cinematography and art direction all contribute to a splendid recreation of an era, but like most MGM dramas based on the classics, it's very Americanized. And with the Hayes Code in place by 1935, the sheer abandon of the actual love story between Anna and Vronsky had to be toned down considerably. This may have contributed to March's over-zealous acting style, attempting to make up for what they couldn't show on screen - but on the other hand, knowing March's acting style from many other films, I doubt it. Years ago I saw "Love," the silent version of "Anna Karenina" with John Gilbert and Garbo, which was my first experience of that story on film. Though the ending was shamefully changed from the book, I remember being impressed with how believably passionate Garbo was, and how much emotion powered her love scenes with John Gilbert. I'd like to see it again, but I've read that the TMC version Warners is selling has a horrible music track, recorded live with an audience laughing at inappropriate places. MGM's version of "Anna Karenina" is from Greta Garbo's prime, and for that it is well worth seeing. She's beautiful and says more with a single glance than most novelists achieve with ten chapters.