The admirable effort to squeeze one of the greatest novels of all time into a film has resulted in a controversial masterpiece of intensity, and Dostoievsky would have liked it. Maria Schell (Grushenka) and Lee J. Cobb (the murdered father) stand out of a congregation of an ideal acting ensemble. Yul Brunner as Dimitri, Claire Bloom as Katia, Richard Baseheart as Ivan, William Shatner as Alyosha and Albert Salmi as a perfectly loathsome Smerdyakov are all perfect in their performances leaving nothing out, the music is perfectly fitted into the constantly changing and dramatic moods of ever increasing tension, but the greatest credit goes to the writer/director Richard Brooks, who has succeeded with the impossible, to give one of the most complex and polyphonic novels a digestible cinematic form. He adds to the show by including some extra scenes to make the drama easier to grasp, like a considerable foreplay to where the real start of the novel, the family congregation at the Starets Zossima's. I saw this film some 40 years ago and have never been able to forget the performances of Maria Schell and Lee J. Cobb, and the pleasure of reviewing them in what could have been their best performances was a welcome return of a great delight. It was a special satisfaction to observe how Richard Brooks has succeeded in underscoring the romantic element of Dostoievsky, he is in fact the greatest of romantics although well covered under a massive outfit of humanity, intelligence, psychology and the faculty of anatomizing human nature. The romance here is that between Dimitri and Grushenka, totally hopeless because of the circumstances but therefore the more heightened. It is very interesting to compare this film version with the Russian complete screen adaptation of 2008, which will be reviewed later. They definitely complement each other.