The Possessed (1970)
Rent DVD by Mail
Synopsis of The Possessed
This ambitious four-part adaptation of Dostoevsky's 19th century novel The Possessed was originally telecast in Britain in 1970. A savage attack on the Russian radical movement of the 1870s, the story was set in a peaceful bourgeois village terrorized by a roving gang of revolutionists. The head of the gang, the grotesquely caricatured Peter Verkhovensky (David Collings), was based on real-life rebel Sergei Nechayev, who thought nothing of selling out friends and family alike for the good of "the cause." The actual protagonist of the piece was not, however, the insanely nihilistic Verkhovensky, but the mild-mannered, aristocratic Stavrogin (Keith Bell), whose phlegmatic personality may well have been a smokescreen for a revolutionary spirit of uncommon fervence. Though intended as a burlesque of those who would topple the Czarist regime, the novel curiously reemerged as a paragon of "rebellious idealism" (in the words of critic Irving Howe) to the radical youths of the 1960s and 1970s. Reedited as a six-parter, The Possessed was seen in America as a component of PBS' Masterpiece Theatre beginning May 2, 1971. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Complete Cast of The Possessed
- Keith Bell - Nikolay Stavrogin
- David Collings - Peter Verkhovensky
- Rosalie Crutchley - Mme. Stavrogin
- Paul Hardwick - Lebyadkin
- George Murcell - Liputin
- Rick Warner - Governor
- Tim Preece - Kirilov
- Anne Stallybrass - Dasha
- James Caffrey - Shahov
- Eve Belton - Marya Lebyadkin
- Tracey Lloyd - Lisa Drosdov
- Janey Webb - Mme. Liputih
- Joseph O'Conor - Stepan
- Director(s):
- Naomi Capon
- Producer(s):
- David Conroy
- Looking for special editions of The Possessed?
- See All Versions
- Subtitles:
- Check All Versions
- Closed Captioning:
- Check All Versions
