OVP: The Brothers Karamazov (1958)

Film: The Brothers Karamazov (1958)

Stars: Yul Brynner, Maria Schell, Claire Bloom, Lee J. Cobb, Albert Salmi, William Shatner, Richard Basehart

Director: Richard Brooks

Oscar History: 1 nomination (Best Supporting Actor-Lee J. Cobb)

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

Each month, as part of our 2023 Saturdays with the Stars series, we are looking at the Golden Age western, and the stars who made it one of the most enduring legacies of Classical Hollywood.  This month, our focus is on Yul Brynner: click here to learn more about Mr. Brynner (and why I picked him), and click here for other Saturdays with the Stars articles.

Yul Brynner is one of those true overnight success stories in Hollywood, someone who came in and was suddenly wildly in demand.  In the late 1950's, he couldn't do any wrong in terms of studio success.  Despite not looking like Rock Hudson or William Holden (he was very handsome, but as a balding man in his late thirties, one who spoke with an unmistakable Russian accent, he didn't fit a previously-known mold), he started in 1956 with the triple threat of The Ten Commandments, Anastasia, and The King & I (the latter winning him an Oscar, all of them being hits), and for the next couple of years he would enjoy a number of hits, even if there were a few flops like The Sound and the Fury and Surprise Package in the mix.  One of those hits we actually talked about for this series when we discussed the career of Gina Lollobrigida, Solomon and Sheba, but a second we haven't had a chance to talk through (even though it was Oscar-nominated) and is how we're going to kick-off our month devoted to Brynner: The Brothers Karamazov.

(Spoilers Ahead) The movie is 145 minutes long and based on an even longer Russian novel (which I've read!), so to summarize the plot into a paragraph is kind of insane.  Essentially you have three brothers (we learn eventually there's a fourth brother who was born illegitimately), each with a different approach to their father Fyodor (Cobb), in some cases cloying (Shatner's Alexey), in other cases defiant (Brynner's Dmitri) and still others a combination of the two (Basehart's Ivan).  The movie shows the shifting and complicating dynamics the three brothers have to faith, Russia, and to their father, specifically his taste for women and excessive fortune.  The major crux of Brothers Karamazov from a plot perspective is the murder of Fyodor and the subsequent trial of Dmitri, whom we know in the audience is innocent...but it's not clear how this will pan out in the movie (and indeed, they change the ending to make it a bit sunnier).

As I said, I've read the book, and as a result I know why this is considered a classic, and while it is a brilliantly-executed, intriguing plot (particularly the relationship between Dmitri and his father), what's captivating about the novel is the way that it gives a sense of Russia itself, decades before the Russian Revolution.  There are entire sections of the novel that are about establishing characters that are completely ancillary to the story (frequently almost poetic segways), and while that's fine (books are not movies, he said for the thousandth time even though some people refuse to hear it), it does mean that the movie has a different task-it has to take characters who are largely etched through their own soliloquies & side adventures, and draw them within the confines of the main plot.  This is harder to do than it sounds, and the movie doesn't have the connection to the material to pull it off.

It's not helped by a weird bit of casting.  Brynner as Dmitri makes sense, one of the few times he plays a Russian character onscreen during this era, and he is the best of the cast though he doesn't get enough to do, but the rest of the performers are not well-considered.  Maria Schell is too passive as Grushenka (the novel's best character), and honestly needs more charisma (Marilyn Monroe actively pursued this role, and I kind of want to see the film with her in it even though I cannot fathom Monroe doing a Russian accent).  William Shatner is a good actor (he has a reputation now as a bit hammy, but look at his episodes of The Twilight Zone for evidence), but comes across as completely American, and one who isn't entirely convinced by his life as a monk (even though he's supposed to be).  And Lee J. Cobb, getting an Oscar nomination, does so by scenery-chewing & overacting.  This isn't always unwelcome during the duller bits of the film, but it doesn't work and there were actors who were a lot better in 1958 who deserved this more.  That this long, boring epic based on a difficult-to-read Russian novel was a hit for MGM in 1958 is a testament either to Brynner's star power or to a public that was hungry for great literary epics during this time frame.