Rating: 
Summary: Not a Bad movie- not a v. good one either
Review: I view this movie with fixed emotions- having read the book i was disappointed that the movie had 6 writers and was more than three hours and yet failed to include so many of the books charming sub-plots about much of the supporting cast ie. Maria Bollonsky, Denisof, Nikolaii Rostof and even then did not fully expand some of the main characters. However the film has it's redeeming moments, Audrey Hepburn was charming and her perfomance is energetic and enthusiastic and Mel Ferrer played a quite difficult part- the brooding cynical Prince Andreii- well. Henry Fonda - though he looked like Pierre and throughout the movie eminates integrity- was really rather boring, furthermore his accent was very out of place and quite irritating. The cinematography was passable, as was the use of music but some parts were either bland or gaudy. There are some charming shots but the war scenes were anti- climax. Overall there were some parts that were charming and very true to the novel and other parts were boring and and did not stick to the novel at all. However I recommend this movie to those who have not read the book, and to those who have, watch it with caution, enjoy it but don't leave your expectations too high up
Rating:
Summary: Solid film... but wait until you see the Russian version!
Review: I was 16 went I saw the original theatrical release of Paramount's 1956 version of War & Peace. I was enthralled... but then in those days I was enthralled with every wide-screen, stereo sound movie I saw. I even enjoyed Beneath The 12 Mile Reef !!! Since those heady days I have tried to watch this Hollywood version of Tolstoy's epic novel on TV and VHS, but was always panned-and-scaned into numbness. With the Dec. 3rd , 2002, release, after nearly a half-century of missing its left and right sides, this solid, and beautifully mounted film emerges once again in its wide screen glory.Of course condensing a 1000 page novel into three hours eliminates many of Tolstoy's details, but the basic story remains very much in tact. What is stellar here is the cast. In 1956 Audrey Hepburn was peaking, both as an actress and a beauty. Henry Fonda played a sympathetic Pierre with considerable grace, and Mel Ferrer did admirably with the difficult role of the moody Andrei. Most impressive is Oscar (Mr. Eyebrows) Holmolka as General Katuzov, and Herbert Lom makes a believable brooding Napoleon. You even get Anita Ekberg! Then when you add John Mills, Vittorio Gassman and a number of other accomplished performers, this becomes a film well worth watching. It is also notable because it was the last major directing effort by silent film master, King Vidor. But hang on! Also in December the eminently preferable, 1968 Sergi Bondarchuk Mosfilm six-hour version of War & Peace also comes out on DVD. Paramount put together a "cast of thousands," but Mosfilm appears to have assembled a "cast of millions" To portray the vast French and Russian forces, Bondarchuk did not need "digital clones" for he had the services of the entire Red Army. In 1956 I was very impressed with Vidor's Battle of Bordino sequence, but compared the action Bondarchuk puts on the screen during the defense of Moscow, it almost seems quaint. Paramount's version is fine, but wait until Bondarchuk takes you on a ride across the battle field by hitching his camera to a cannonball. Clark Santee
Rating: 
Summary: a piece of history
Review: it gave me a lot of pleasure seeing come to live the book by tolstoy WAR and Peace been made a film.it was great from any angle.too bad there is not availble as DVD movie disk
Rating: 
Summary: It should have and could have been so much better....
Review: It has been almost 50 years since this film first appeared, allegedly based on Tolstoy's novel and stolidly directed by King Vidor. Since then, of course, there have been dozens of other epic films whose special effects were aided and enhanced by technologies then unavailable to Vidor and his crew. However, given the scope and depth of Tolstoy's examination of Russia in the 1805-1815 time period, even a film produced today could not possibly do full justice to his novel. My rating takes into full (and respectful) account when this film was made; also, I admit being charmed by Audrey Hepburn's style and grace in the role of Natasha. However, Vidor's direction seems to me uninspired, at times listless, and Henry Fonda (one of my favorite actors) is woefully miscast as Pierre. However, there are several magnificent, truly memorable scenes. The cast and crew are inevitably multi-national, adding at least some seasoning to a bland screenplay. Strong performances in a supporting role are provided by Vittorio Gassman (Anatole), Oscar Homolka (General Kutuzov), and Herbert Lom (Napoleon). Jack Cardiff and Aldo Tonti's cinematography is first-rate. "All things considered," the film is often entertaining despite a running time of 208 minutes. It is what it is...but not what it could have been. Hence my rating of Three and One-Half Stars to which I add half a Star in special appreciation of Audrey Hepburn's performance.
Rating:
Summary: Love and Honor, Russian Style
Review: It's been quite a while since I saw this movie but I'll never forget it. I think Audrey Hepburn was Superb and I always think of her as Natasha. She was perfect in portraying youth and innocence and her impetuous personality showed through well.I can't think of any other actor to compare with her.
I found it difficult to really like Prince Andrei-he seemed so standoffish but he was faithful in his love. In my mind, Pierre, my favorite male character, was really the hero. He was noble in a different way than Prince Andrei. This was a wonderful movie and great for any viewer who likes historical romances. Although I do not like war movies,the movie was wonderful in giving a brief view of life in the Russian empire. It depicted the brutality of war also and the suffering of the prisoners. This is definitely a classic and worth seeing more than once.
Rating:
Summary: A perfect intimate epic
Review: This film came out on DVD this month and I rushed to buy it. This version is the first to render all the detail and perfection of Jack Cardiff's a-ma-zing compositions and brilliant, varied photography. As a collection of definitive, memorable images, this film is better than any comparable historical epic of the period and even gives GWTW a run for its money. King Vidor's direction is a series of `tableaux vivants' where the characters are not posing but acting in a very natural, period-specific way. I have never had a problem with this adaptation of Tolstoy's novel. I think it is a wonderful introduction to the period and the novel and that it is a very poetic, very original work in its own right. The most conspicuous handicap of this movie, in my opinion, besides a few rough patches in the generally pristine celluloid - Natasha unevenly shifts from light to dark while waiting for a dancing partner at the ball and she has a whole in her nose at the opera - is its soundtrack (in glorious mono). The barely hi-fi recording of dialogues and music sounds pinched, hollow and tinny and it always has in every version I have ever seen: in the theatres, on TV and on video. Even the soundtrack album is an abomination. As limited as it is, this soundtrack is at least free of static and scratches. In some scenes, however, before the necessary adjustments (With a Dolby 5.1 receiver, try the "Mono Movie" CD setting and amplifying the "surround effects" and subwoofer volume to a maximum), Audrey Hepburn's and Mel Ferrer's voices actually hurt your ear. Nino Rota's very Russian-sounding score is serviceable and melodic, although rather sparse in its orchestration and in the number of players. But maybe that's his hommage to Mozart's simplicity... One can only wonder what `War and Peace' could have sounded like with a cohort of Hollywood arrangers, decent recording facilities and lavish, varied orchestrations in true high fidelity and stereophonic sound. According to Lukas Kendall of `Film Score Monthly', the original recording elements of the soundtrack have long ago disappeared, which is the common lot of international, independent co-productions of the era. Someone somewhere is certainly guilty of skimping on quality or embezzlement for this 1956 movie to sound so much worse than a 1939, pre-hi-fi epic like GWTW. But it's still a masterpiece!
Rating:
Summary: the Hollywood version
Review: This film is a bit of a mess, but nevertheless very entertaining, mostly because of Audrey Hepburn...her charisma and enthusiasm make up for a lot of the muddled and mixed performances that surround her in this star-studded production of Tolstoy's masterpiece. Hepburn's then real life husband, Mel Ferrer, does a pretty good job as Prince Andrei and Henry Fonda is Pierre, who despite sounding like "Young Mr. Lincoln", gives a convincing performance, and has several fine scenes. Nino Rota's score is a curious one, as the beautiful Italian-flavored melodies we're accustomed to hear from him are replaced by Russian folk tunes and battlefield music. Perhaps too many big names and too many writers (6 of them !) made the heart of the book get lost, but this is Audrey's movie, and she's a delight to watch.
Rating:
Summary: A Flawed Though Underrated Gem
Review: This is a tough one. In this film adaptation of one of the greatest of the literary classics, one is left wondering whether the magic that one feels comes from the film or is carried over from the novel. For those of us who have read the novel, the artistic license that King Vidal takes is difficult to swallow. Even if we understand that something must inevitably be sacrificed in the distillation of such a massive tome, the abridgement of so much literary genius is troubling. Whole characters, episodes and entire subplots are missing, to say nothing of the larger drama of an ancient and honourable culture teetering on the brink of ruin. As hard as the film tries, it misses this sense of awful grandeur and fails to invoke the overwhelming sweep of history conveyed so well in the novel.
Where it succeeds is in the smaller stories: the lives of the key protagonists, their loves, passions, accomplishments and deaths. We see some admirable performances, especially by Audrey Hepburn as Natasha. She is stunning as a precocious innocent who journeys into womanhood through the brutality of war. Henry Fonda at first seems miscast as a gangly nebbish Peter, until you see him decisively defending Natasha's honour and then confessing his love to her, or clinging to life and hope as a grimly determined prisoner of war. And Mel Ferrer invests his Andrew with what I think is just the right mixture of aloofness, sensitivity, passion and angst. When he first asks Natasha to dance, standing there in his uniform of white and serge, you can understand how Audrey Hepburn fell in love with him in real life. Their scenes together show the tension and tenderness of a real couple, and bring a believable romantic chemistry to the screen. Then there is the splendid cast of supporting actors from Natasha's endearing parents to Andrew's martinet of a father to Herbert Lom's surprisingly complex and sympathetic Napoleon. They don't make character actors like these anymore.
It goes without saying that the plot is magnificent. But this is once again more of a tribute to the novel than the film. Only an idiot could have hashed such a wonderful story.
However, this film is no more about plot than it is about politics. I always felt that Tolstoy's choice of title does his novel an injustice, giving it the air of a political treatise that belies its humanity. War and Peace is only peripherally about either war or peace. While his book does polemicize about war, politics and history, it really only finds its stride when focusing on its ageless themes of hope, love, loss and redemption. And because his characters are constructed so skilfully, we care for them and feel their emotions as if they were our own. To this extent, the film largely succeeds. It is true enough to the heart of the characters that it effectively conveys the novel's essence, even if it doesn't adhere strictly to the novel itself.
It's not perfect. For one thing, it contains irritating affectations that are simply unnecessary. For example, Napoleon is shown directing his army in the midst of the battlefield while reclining and with his legs propped up on a footstool. In fact, Napoleon never showed such contempt for his soldiers and often placed himself dangerously near the front lines astride a white charger as an example of courage and trust in his men. And this movie, like Gone with the Wind, to which it is often compared, commits the sin of glossing over the treatment of its underclass. The front line Russian soldier was a starved, ill-equipped peasant pressed into service and kept from deserting with whippings and the threat of death. The movie focuses on the lives and loves of the nobility to the exclusion of practically all else, and this is one area where the film could have gained by departing from the novel.
This is more than a "period" film and even those who are allergic to such fare might wish to give it a chance. In all, it is a fine film to be admired more for its characterizations than its accuracy. It comes off especially well when compared to its contemporary "epics" like Cleopatra, or Ben Hur, because the characters were created not by Hollywood screenwriters, but by a literary genius, and are thus imbued with an almost Shakespearean presence. However, it will not appeal to people with unbending views about either their literature or their history. Tolstoy's novel subsumed his characters to the larger story of a Russia under siege. This is why he populated the world of his novel with so many people. In this film, Hollywood justifies the presence of its big stars by ignoring the larger canvass to concentrate on the lives of a select few. The result is a film much reduced in scope from the spirit of the novel, but still effective in its diminished way.
Rating:
Summary: Still The Best
Review: This is an appeal to Hollywood, if anyone's listening.
I first saw this film in 1956, when it first opened in the UK. I've seen it several times since, but all I can get here across the pond, is a second hand video at an extortionate price of nearly £ 40. Please can we have it on DVD? SOON!
Rating:
Summary: A great adaptation for the screen
Review: This is one of my favorite movies of all time. The acting is superb and the costumes and sets are marvelous. Granted, the script did stray from the book, but I think it was a great adaptation, considering the length of the book and the short length the movie actually had to be. Overall, I would definately recommend this movie if for no other reason than to see Audrey Hepburn in a charming role, as well as the two spectacular performances by Mel Ferrer and Henry Fonda.
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