COUNT VRONSKY'S DAUGHTER

Much less bubbly than The Shadowed Spring (1980), this is a so-so melodrama/ romance featuring the adventures of Anni, daughter of Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Count Vronsky. After dying papa Alexei Alexandrovich tells Anni the true story of her parentage, she goes to visit school chum Marie in 1893 Paris--where she meets American Jeff Brewster, who persuades her to study painting at the school of Monsieur Jules, a grand charlatan. And, refusing Jeff's offer of marriage, Anni will soon have three other men in her life--including exciting Englishman Oliver Graysmith, strange friend of Anni's weak brother Seriozha; the two men seem to be involved in anarchistic activities! Soon Anna is under police surveillance, the investigation led by Robert Haquin, a curiously gentlemanly and sensitive detective; but when Anni's brother disappears and she must hide the seriously wounded Oliver, love blossoms. Meanwhile, poor Anni discovers she's penniless (an unscrupulous agent absconded with the family money), so she makes do with posing for life classes. . . until a surprise inheritance brings her back to St. Petersburg (where she gets attention from the Tsar's secret police and handsome Prince Nikolai Gregory). Escapes, weddings, mysterious followers, a race up the Eiffel Tower, nasty surprises: not enough pizazz to turn Leo over in his cerements--just an easily forgotten adventure with a slightly redeeming thread of mystery.