The Brothers Karamazov (1958)

In 1870 Czarist Russia, the hedonistic but selfish Karamazov (Lee J. Cobb) sires four sons from two marriages and an outside affair, none of whom he has much interest in. Dmitri (Yul Brynner) is a gambler and a womanizer, Ivan (Richard Basehart) is a philosophical atheist, Alexi (William Shatner) a pious monk and the bastard son (the porcine faced Albert Salmi, so perfectly cast that your flesh crawls at his every appearance) is bitterly resentful. Two women have major roles in the story. The spiteful Katya (Claire Bloom) and the sensual Grushenka (Maria Schell, GERVAISE) who is the lover of both the elder Karamazov and Dmitri. The complex 800 page novel by Dostoyevsky is given a Readers Digest version in Richard Brooks' (THE PROFESSIONALS) film. The first two thirds are very good actually but the film's last third opts for a conventional courtroom drama and a comprised ending with only lip service given to Dostoyevsky's treatise on God, moral ethics, right and wrong. With the exception of a miscast Brynner, the acting is superlative all the way down the line. Cobb, in an Oscar nominated performance, seems to have found a role where his outsized acting seems natural. The potent score is by Bronislau Kaper. With Judith Evelyn, Harry Townes, David Opatoshu, Simon Oakland, Edgar Stehli, Frank DeKova and Ziva Rodann.