Three Sisters (1970 film)
Three Sisters is a 1970 British drama film starring Alan Bates, Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright, based on the 1901 play by Anton Chekhov. Olivier also directed, with co-director John Sichel; it was the final feature film directed by Olivier. The film was based on a 1967 theatre production that Olivier had directed at the Royal National Theatre. Both the theatrical production and the film used the translation from the original Russian by Moura Budberg.[1] The film was released in the U.S. in 1974 as part of the American Film Theatre. This was a series of thirteen film adaptations of stage plays shown to subscribers at about 500 movie theaters across the country.
| Three Sisters | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover | |
| Directed by | Laurence Olivier John Sichel |
| Produced by | James C. Katz & John Goldstone |
| Screenplay by | Moura Budberg (trans.) |
| Based on | Three Sisters (play) by Anton Chekhov |
| Starring | Alan Bates Laurence Olivier Joan Plowright Derek Jacobi |
| Music by | William Walton |
| Cinematography | Geoffrey Unsworth |
| Edited by | Jack Harris |
| Distributed by | British Lion Films |
Release date | 2 November 1970 (UK) 4 February 1974 (US) |
Running time | 165 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
Cast
- Jeanne Watts as Olga
- Joan Plowright as Masha
- Louise Purnell as Irina
- Derek Jacobi as Andrei
- Sheila Reid as Natasha
- Kenneth MacKintosh as Kulighin
- Daphne Heard as Anfisa
- Judy Wilson as Serving Maid
- Mary Griffiths as Housemaid
- Ronald Pickup as Baron Tusenbach
- Laurence Olivier as Dr. Ivan Chebutikin
- Frank Wylie as Maj. Vassili Vassilich Solyony
- Alan Bates as Col. Vershinin
- Richard Kay as Lt. Fedotik
Reception
The film was apparently not widely reviewed in either its 1970 British or its 1974 US releases. Following the US release, the prominent critic Judith Crist wrote, "Once again we are faced with a neither-film-nor-play production, but it is, in Moura Budberg's liberal but satisfying translation and under Olivier's semi-cinematic direction, one at very least to fascinate devotees of the play. ... Through several performances, in Geoffrey Unsworth's luscious cinematography (and I mean the adjective in praise of the uncluttered and naturally generated flow his work deserves), and in the pacing there is somehow a sensuality and a sexuality underlying the work that I had not hitherto felt."[2] Molly Haskell wrote that the film "boasts in Joan Plowright's Masha the finest performance I have seen or ever hope to see of one of Chekhov's greatest women characters."[3]
Home video
The film was first released as a region 1 DVD in 2004.[4] A Blu-ray version was released in the US in 2017.[5]
See also
- Three Sisters (1994 film), a 1994 Russian language film
References
- Chekhov, Anton Pavlovich (1971). The Three Sisters. Moura Budberg (trans.). London: Davis-Poynter. ISBN 9780706700046. OCLC 10864445.
- Crist, Judith (11 March 1974). "Movies/Judith Crist". New York Magazine. p. 79.
- Haskell, Holly (14 March 1974). "Chekhov: A Feminist Vision". The Village Voice. p. 72.
- The Three Sisters (DVD (region 1)). Kino International Corporation. 2008. OCLC 841312340.
- Orndorf, Brian (8 June 2017). "Three Sisters Blu-ray Review". Blu-ray.com.