Word: korda
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Anna Karenina (Korda; 20th Century-Fox) is the latest movie version (there have been four U.S. ones) of Tolstoy's lesser masterpiece. It is by far the costliest ($2,000,000) but far from the best.* Sir Alexander Korda and his British bankers provided the money; France's famed Director Julien Duvivier (Pepe Le Moko, Panic) contributed' his talents...
...make matters worse, Britain's own movie production was falling off. Last week the Film Industry Employees Council charged the moviemakers with slacking. Cinemagnates J. Arthur Rank and Sir Alexander Korda denied it. But independent producers, who last year turned put 26 feature pictures, had been unable to get backing from Britain's nervous bankers...
...Ideal Husband (London Film; 20th Century-Fox) is not one of Oscar Wilde's best plays, but it has enough edge and style to make the run of plays look oafish. Alexander Korda's screen production of it is short of ideal, but it is distinctly something to see and hear...
...best things about the screen production are the sets (by Vincent Korda), the costumes (by Cecil Beaton), and the exquisitely muted Technicolor. Most of the casting and acting are good too. The weakest things are the uneven reading of the lines, the lethargic pace, and the final visual essence of the picture...
...could have been one of the most lusciously beautiful movies on record. Even as it stands, it is an entertaining eyeful. Unfortunately, the production occasionally becomes too slow, and too nearly a literal-minded play. It would be much more real if it were less realistic. Apparently Producer-Director Korda was afraid to stylize the picture completely and so slowed up the lines for the general audience. These lines were meant for sleight-of-hand delivery; too often the players draw a diagram of how the rabbit got into...