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WAR AND PEACE – Nino Rota

February 24, 2026 Leave a comment

GREATEST SCORES OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY

Original Review by Craig Lysy

A film based on Leo Tolstoy’s epic 1869 novel War and Peace first surfaced in 1941 with aspirations by renown British producer Alexander Korda, but the project could not move into production because the Soviet Ministry of Culture would not cooperate. It would take thirteen more years for ambitious producer Dino De Laurentis to finally get the project off the ground. He would personally manage production using his own production company with a massive $6.0 million budget. Condensing the massive 1,225-page novel into a cogent screenplay for a 2.5 – 3.5-hour film was daunting with it going through several incarnations at the hands of eight writers, including director King Vidor. A stellar cast was assembled, including Audrey Hepburn as Natasha Rostova, Henry Fonda as Count Pierre Bezukhov, Mel Ferrer as Prince Andrei Bolkonsky, and Herbert Lom as Napoleon Bonaparte. Read more…