Anna Karenina (1961)

Even at 1¾ hours long, it's still quite tough to enliven the detail from Tolstoy's story into a television drama - and a black and white one, too. This one tries quite hard but falls just a little short on the imagination front. Clare Bloom takes the lead as the lady going through the marital motions with a junior politician then she encounters "Prince Alexei" (Sean Connery). He's more of a princeling, really, but she falls hook line and sinker for him and pretty soon their temptation is arousing the suspicion of her husband (Albert Lievin) who warns her of the dangers of her behaviour - but there's no stopping them. Next thing, they have thrown caution to the wind and are living in sin. Her husband forbids her to see their son and the story follows her pretty torrid time trying to reconcile the troubles of her past and the joys of her future. Bloom shines here and Connery is energised in a fashion I've rarely seen as both deliver lively performances that illustrate well mid 1800s Russian attitudes, society and mores. The standard of production from the BBC is top notch with super attention to the detail of the costumes and the studio sets. Like many of their embryonic television dramas, the corporation managed to recruit an experienced cast adept at stagecraft. That gives us a sense of continuation as the story proceeds without looking too static. There is plenty missing, a few sub-plots ignored completely, but there's still more than enough of the gist to the story to carry this stylish presentation well enough. Many of the more imaginative elements contained in the book will never readily adapt for cinema, but hats off to Rudolph Cartier for giving this a go.