Anna Karenina (1935)

Anna Karenina is an American romantic film drama first released in 1935, directed by Clarence Brown.  The film is based on a novel by Leo Tolstoy and stars Greta Garbo, Fredric March, Freddie Bartholomew, Maureen O’Sullivan and May Robson.  Our overall rating for this film is: very good.


On a visit to Moscow to salvage the marriage of her brother and sister-in-law, Anna Karenina makes the acquaintance of Count Vronsky, an officer in the Russian army.  Although Anna is married and has a young son, she cannot help falling in love with Vronksy.  Her husband, an important government official, refuses to grant her a divorce, so she has no choice but to abandon her home so that she can pursue her love affair with Vronksy...

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.

© James Travers 2008

Write a review for this film...


What do you think of this film?

More American Drama
More American Romance
Recent DVD releases