This impressive - and a little overwhelming - Hollywood version of Leo Tolstoy's Napoleonic saga suffers from too much peace and too little war, especially given that the battle scenes are tremendously staged by Mario Soldati, helping out credited director King Vidor. Henry Fonda, though miscast and too old, is still amazingly good as Pierre, and there are excellent contributions from Mel Ferrer, Herbert Lom, Anita Ekberg and especially Oscar Homolka. Although developments in the drama are signalled heavily, this is still a commendable stab at a mammoth undertaking.

©ipc tx. Film content from TVTimes