The acting is superb, with brilliant performances turned in by Lee J. Cobb, as the lecherous and crafty father, and by Yul Brynner, as his fiery, quick-tempered eldest son.” For the Los Angeles Times, Philip K. Scheuer called Brynner’s performance “impressive” and wrote that Lee J. Cobb as Fyodor “succeeds in striking a recognizable and responsive chord with an audience,” but found that Maria Schell’s Grushenka was played “with a persisting Mona Lisa smile that I felt was not only foreign to the role of the materialistic, venal harlot but was also incomprehensibly at variance with her changing moods.”
In more critical reviews, John McCarten of The New Yorker declared that the film “goes on for about two and a half hours, most of which you’d be better off spending at some more rewarding pursuit…I think that Mr. Brooks, in addition to being saddled with actors who just can’t stand up to the obligations they’ve assumed, never quite grapples with the ideas that Dostoevski was trying to propound.”
The Monthly Film Bulletin wrote “There is none of Dostoievsky’s profundity or exciting exploration of motive. All the brothers emerge as quite inexplicable people. It is hard to be sympathetic to Dmitri, and not to be embarrassed by Alyosha or scornful of Ivan. The performances throughout suggest that the cast never really knew what it was all about.”
