At 95 minutes, Tolstoy is savaged, but there’s a fair amount of quality in the remains. Greta Garbo is an Anna of anyone’s dreams, indescribably beautiful in ‘35, and if Fredric March was unhappy making two Tolstoy’s in a row, his dour mood works for the major quarrel scenes. M-G-M’s addiction to constant reshooting tended to wreak havoc on the dramatic flow of their films, but the big scenes here seems to have been left alone, allowing megger Clarence Brown a bit of rhythm & elbow room. He was a much finer director on his non-Garbo projects, but this was the best of his Garbo 'talkies.' The handsome, unfussy design and Wm. Daniels’ dark-hued lensing, demonstrate David O. Selznick’s tough-mindedness in fighting M-G-M standard issue. And he certainly pulled in a luxe cast. As her beloved son, Freddie Bartholomew works wonderfully w/ Garbo and Basil Rathbone makes a scary Karenin in the one-dimensional characterization he's been given to play. We even get a chance to sort out those two Reginalds, Owen & Denny. (If only Reginald Gardiner was also on board, we'd have a trifecta.) May Robson is hopelessly miscast as Vronsky’s mother, but like so much else here, say Karenin’s essential, insufferable forgiveness or Anna’s drugs, her role has been cut to the bone. On a happier note, that musical nonentity Herbert Stothart pulled off a respectable score.
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