Better Late Then Never

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

I have always been a huge Jacqueline Bisset Fan and believe my opinion of her was sealed when I saw this wonderful made for TV movie in 1985. Many women have tried to capture the essence of Anna Karenina but most have never captured all of it. I believe Ms. Bisset has achieved that and the psychologically dependent, multi-faceted Anna is totally believable in Bisset's hands as she agonizes over the choices life is now presenting her with. On the surface, the differences between Karenin and Count Vronsky are clear and yet...divorce was anathema for women living in that era. Paul Scofield is superb as Karenin and no one has done it better than he! So too Anna Massey, Judi Bowker, Joanna David and Ian Ogilvy are quite creditable in their roles. The only drawback for me was the casting of Christopher Reeve as the "dashing" Count Vronsky. He did not have the "dash" or flair and certainly did not possess the acting chops to handle such a stylized, European role. As tall and as handsome as he was, he never had the finesse necessary for such a piece and outside of the terrible coincidence involving the accident with his horse, which paralleled his real-life tragedy...I do not believe he should have been cast.

Jacqueline Bisset gives a heartfelt reading of the great Russian heroine and is at perhaps the peak of her beauty having past her girlish prettiness and entered into an exquisite loveliness. The awesome Paul Scofield commands the screen every second he is present and makes the cuckolded husband's anguish and sense of betrayal and the cruelty that is the result understandable. Christopher Reeve cuts a dashing figure and gives it his best shot but his costars simply act rings around him. This was Jackie's TV bow and reminds you of a time when movie stars moving to television were afforded the opportunity to do something special because there were fewer networks and larger audiences willing to give quality work a chance.

Based on Leo Tolstoy's great romance novel, this made-for-TV film is a terrific story. Basically already married Anna Karenina (Jacqueline Bisset) dances with Count Vronsky (a good performance by the late great Christopher Reeve), and not long after they fall in love. The bastard husband Karenin (Paul Scofield) is unaware for a while that Anna is carrying Vronsky's child. Months later, after finding out, she seems to be dying from after-pregnancy fever, and she said that she will live and leave Karenin. Another few months later though she lives and moves in with Vronsky with her new daughter. To make them really happy though they want the husband to divorce, and give her the son she left behind. A great romance, ruined towards the end with both the husband, loss of the son, and the dream Anna had that came true where she kills herself with a train! Also starring Ian Ogilvy as Stiva, Anna Massey as Betsy, Joanna David as Dolly, Judi Bowker as Kitty, Valerie Lush as Annushka and Nicholas Selby as the Doctor. Good!

When Count Vronsky, played by Christopher Reeve, falls off his horse in the race scene I shiver; knowing that is how that fine young man was later incapacitated in real life. It is absolutely chilling!! This is not the greatest adaptation of the novel Anna Karenina but it is certainly the most memorable due to the fate of the actor!!