Anna Karenina (1935)
Directed by Clarence Brown

Film Review

Greta Garbo radiates passion, exuberance and pathos as the tragic Tolstoy heroine in this, possibly the finest screen adaptation of Anna Karenina.   Garbo had previously played the role in a silent 1927 version entitled Love, directed by Edmund Goulding, which also featured her off-screen lover John Gilbert.  The actress cited this as her favourite of the seven films she made with director Clarence Brown, and the part won her the New York Film Critics Circle Best Actress Award in 1936.

A lavish David O. Selznick production, this version of Anna Karenina captures the essence of Tolstoy's great novel, focussing on the heroine's experience of a love that consumes her and then drives her to destruction.  The moody photography heightens the sense of impending tragedy as Anna Karenina's ill-fated love carries her to an inescapable doom.  The film's climax is devastatingly poignant - so cruel that it is almost unbearable to watch, a striking visual symbol of the destructive power of love.

Film Synopsis

During the 19th century, Anna Arkadyevna Karenina undertakes a trip to Moscow in the hope of saving her brother Stiva's marriage.  On the way, she makes the acquaintance of Count Vronsky, a handsome young officer in the Imperial Russian army.  Even though she is married - to a prominent statesman, Alexei Karenin - and has a son, Anna cannot help falling in love with the fine military man.  Leaving Moscow for St Petersburg, Anna is pursued by Vronsky, who ignores her appeals to give up his interest in her.  By now, the two are desperately in love, but when Anna asks her husband for a divorce he flatly refuses, fearing the scandal this may cause.  She has no choice now but to abandon her home and her family so that she can continue her love affair with the man who means more to her than anything in the world, Count Vronksy...