Shatner's first movie, The Brothers Karamazov, on TCM Wed. 7/7 @ 2:30 PM

[august]

This was based on the Dostoyevsky novel, and came out in 1958. I tried to watch it years ago, and it moves as quickly as... well, as a Dostoyevsky novel.

Ryevsk, Russia, 1870. Tensions abound in the Karamazov family. Fyodor is a wealthy libertine who holds his purse strings tightly. His four grown sons include Dmitri, the eldest, an elegant officer, always broke and at odds with his father, betrothed to Katya, herself lovely and rich. The other brothers include a sterile aesthete, a factotum who is illegitmate, and a monk. Family tensions erupt when Dmitri falls in love with one of his father's mistresses, the coquette Grushenka. Two brothers see Dmitri's jealousy of their father as an opportunity to inherit sooner. Acts of violence lead to the story's conclusion: trials of honor, conscience, forgiveness, and redemption.

Shatner is the monk believe it or not. Or a better descriptuion might be "young, idealistic priest." The other brothers are played by Yul Brunner (as Dimitri) Richard Basehart (who went on to play Adm. Nelson in the tv version of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea) and Albert Salmi, who turned up on everything as loveable, usually dirty rogues, incl. Daniel Boone and Lost in Space (where he was the space pirate who would say "Arrr, Betelgeuese - that be the planet where ol' Beely Bones be from.") Interestingly, Salmi turned down an Oscar nomination, although Lee J. Cobb got one for playing the dad.

Also in the cast in small roles are Simon Oakland, who would go on to play cops, mobsters and tough guys in 150+ tv roles including the General on Baa Baa Black Sheep and , Darren McGavin's boss on the old "Kolchack: Night Stalker" series, and David Opatoshu, who would appear on Trek years later as the leader in "A Taste of Armageddon," the ep where computers simulated an interplanetary war right down to the casualties.

[RobRoy]

So is it worth watching? I've watched a number of movies because of Shatner's involvement. For example The Intruder is a particular good, early Shatner film, while Incubus is mostly interesting because of its Esperanto heritage.

[august]

It's considered one of The Great Novels, and was a very popular movie in its day.... but it was long, turgid and slow-moving for me. But I was much younger then, so I might give it a shot if I get home from work in time. It's certainly worth tuning in for 15 minutes to see Shatner and then surfing away if you can't get into it.

[RobRoy]

Oh, I'm aware of the book, and it is a classic, if not a "Great Novel". But that does not always mean you'll get a great movie. Consider, if you will, The Musketeer movie that was very loosely based on the text, and employed a heavy dose of Wuxia that was popular at the time. Unfortunately, it didn't work, and most Western audiences found the acting horrible and the plot confusing.

But based on your comments, I will make the attempt to check out the film.

[TimeTravellingBunny]

Originally Posted by august

This was based on the Dostoyevsky novel, and came out in 1958. I tried to watch it years ago, and it moves as quickly as... well, as a Dostoyevsky novel.
.

Eh, I find each of his novels hard to put down once I started them. The only exception is the part about Zosima in The Brothers Karamazov, I found that so dull that I skipped most of it. He was always much better writing about dark/bad/flawed people, than creating paragons of Christian virtue.

Originally Posted by RobRoy

Oh, I'm aware of the book, and it is a classic, if not a "Great Novel". But that does not always mean you'll get a great movie. Consider, if you will, The Musketeer movie that was very loosely based on the text, and employed a heavy dose of Wuxia that was popular at the time. Unfortunately, it didn't work, and most Western audiences found the acting horrible and the plot confusing.

But based on your comments, I will make the attempt to check out the film.

I saw only the second half of the movie, but the part I saw was hardly great. Mostly because Yul Brinner was horribly miscast and wooden, and everyone else (apart from Maria Schell) was hardly on screen.

That description is terrible, BTW. I would hardly describe Ivan as "sterile aesthete", and Grushenka was never Fyodor's mistress.

[RobRoy]

Originally Posted by TimeTravellingBunny

I saw only the second half of the movie, but the part I saw was hardly great. Mostly because Yul Brinner was horribly miscast and wooden, and everyone else (apart from Maria Schell) was hardly on screen.

That description is terrible, BTW. I would hardly describe Ivan as "sterile aesthete", and Grushenka was never Fyodor's mistress.

I'm curious if you're basing your review on your love of the books, or just on the movie's strength alone? Serious question here, not being pedantic or argumentative. Just wondering if your opinion is colored in that fashion or not. Thanks!

[august]

I caught about 10 minutes of this last night, and two things struck me: a) how much Shatner and Brynner resembled each other, both physically and in their intense acting style, and b) how much you want to focus on Shatner when he's on screen. He was enough younger than my memories of him as Kirk that it wasn't just my love of his later work. Plus he was wearing a really bad wig that was oddly reminiscent of the Romulan wigs from TNG, so his resemblance to Kirk was pretty minimal. Here he was playing everything low-key, since he wasn't the forceful dynamic character that Brynner was portaying as the older brother. But you just wanted to hang on every soft word that he spoke because somehow every syllable just seemed to have so much more meaning that what he was ostensibly saying.

[august]

This is on TCM again, Wed. 7/7 at 2:30 PM .