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Much of television director Rudolph Cartier’s ground-breaking work for the BBC from the 1950s and 1960s has been lost today. One which has survived though is his 1961 production of Anna Karenina starring Sean Connery and Claire Bloom which we explore here

There are few things more exciting for film and TV enthusiasts than when missing-believed-lost titles are unearthed from the vaults. Such is the case with this version of Anna Karenina, a highly ambitious adaptation of the Tolstoy masterpiece, starring Claire Bloom and Sean Connery, just a year before his breakthrough role as James Bond. Often regarded as the greatest novel ever written, Anna Karenina tells the tragic story of the trophy wife of a cruel Russian statesman, who falls in love with Count Vronsky (Connery) and pursues an ill-fated affair.

Many early TV dramas, though fascinating as artefacts showing how television has changed over the decades, can appear stilted and stagey, owing to low budgets and the demands of shooting almost entirely in constructed sets. Not so with Anna Karenina - the lush black and white photography lends a cinematic feel to the drama, while the lavish sets effortlessly capture the lifestyle of1880s Russian aristocracy. Connery is a charming and charismatic Vronksy, and Bloom has never been better.

Condensing the epic novel into less than two hours, this is an important work in the history of TV drama.

 

Alex Davidson on 3rd September 2010
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