Anna Karenina

This adaptation suffers from the malady that the very vast majority of attempts to bring a great novel to the screen have - it rushes headlong into the story at a great pace, dispensing with all the build-up. It then plonks itself right into the middle of the tale and gets stuck there, going nowhere but floundering in mires of syrup and angst. Then, it manages to pull itself out and rushes headlong to the close. As a consequence, its terribly uneven, and the central section is just a pile of sentimental mush which has little or nothing to do with the source. At 2 hours 10 minutes, theres a lot of mush to wade through. It pains me to say that Vivien Leigh is NOT Anna Karenina by a long shot - she spends too much time being 'veri, veri unheppi' and strangulating every line. Sure, she looks the part, but the dialogue is gloopy and there is little character development. The fnail scene is laughable - Leigh throws herself into the path of the train which proceeds to pass over her without ever touching her, and we are expected to beleive that she's been crushed to death. But of course, she had to remain completely recognisable for the final shot. The film is like wading through a vat of golden syrup. The only real spark of interest is the very young Sally Anne Howells as Kitty, later to play Truly Scrumptious in Chitty Bang Bang. A very poor attempt at bringing one of the worlds greatest novels to the screen, simply as a vehicle for its star.