When Korda approached Leigh about starring in the film, her husband, Laurence Olivier, was already deeply involved in filming his adaptation of Hamlet (1948). The real timing problem related to the availability of the perfect actor to play Vronsky, the Russian nobleman whose love destroys Anna's life. At the time, Leigh's interpretation of the role was eagerly anticipated. The problem was timing, though not, as some suggested, because MGM's classic 1935 interpretation of the story, with Greta Garbo as the doomed wife and mother, was fresh in audiences' minds. Despite impressive work from the set designer, art director and a sterling performance by Ralph Richardson as Leigh's jilted husband, the movie turned out to be an expensive flop.
With Vivien Leigh, still popular thanks to the success of Gone with the Wind (1939), in the title role, the production had built-in appeal. The most ambitious film on his slate was Anna Karenina (1948), the eleventh of eighteen big screen versions (not to mention seven television adaptations) of Leo Tolstoy's classic tale of a woman torn between her one great love and her devotion to her son. Producer Alexander Korda was courting the international market in the late '40s, when he launched a series of ambitious productions.
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