Word: smerdyakov
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Unfortunately, other transitions are not so effective. The characters of Pyotr Petrovitch Luhzin and Arkady Ivanovitch Svidrigailov, who ranks with Smerdyakov of The Brother's Karamazov as Dostoevsky's most frightening embodiments of evil, are merged into one person, Antoine Monestier, played by Bernard Blier. Blier handles the job fairly well, but fails to capture Svidrigailov's essense, largely because of the necessary omission of the dream sequences which are so important in the novel...
...could have composed the masterful "Grand Inquisitor" or struggled with the devil himself near the close of the novel. The precariously saintly Alexey Karamazov is transformed into a sort of religious straight man, whose feeble pietisms and meaningful stares represent the religious instruction of the movie, and the idiot Smerdyakov becomes a shrewd, calculating, vengeful spirit who falls just a trifle short of being the film's dominant figure...