Leo Tolstoy’s Book On The Silversheet

Manawatu Times, Volume 61, Issue 47, 26 February 1936, Page 11

Leo Tolstoy’s Book On The Silversheet

GARBO—MARCH APPEAR IN “ANNA KARENINA”

(Regent: Screening Saturday.)

The settings of “Anna Karenina,” depicting Imperial Russia at the height of its splendour, were designed by Cedric Gibbons and his staff. Assisting in the production were three authorities on Russian affairs and customs, headed by Nathalie Bucknall, chief of M.G.M Research Department, who is assisted by Count Audrey Tolstoy, a descendant of the famed novelist.

It is a picture that must be considered one of those rare occasions when everything comes up to expectations. It is the film version of Leo Tolstoy's famous book. Though the players chosen for the principal parts, Greta Garbo and Fredric March, must account for part of the film's success, the essentials of a great picture are to be found in the story and in the production, which has been very sympathetic. The supporting cast has been chosen with every care to the demands of the story. In Basil Rathbone, Maureen O’Sullivan, Freddie Bartholomew and May Robson there are players who strengthen the film rather than just form a complement for it. The direction has been uniformly sound; under it the whole of Tolstoy's intensely moving drama emerges unscathed. Indeed, the picture, though faithful to the story, is actually easier to see than the translated version of the book was to understand, for then the reader had to acquire a sympathy in the atmosphere that was foreign to him; but the film version draws the audience into the atmosphere without any mental effort on their part,