The Brothers Karamazov poses particular problems for screen adaptation. That the novel is simply long and filled with a multiplicity of primary and secondary characters is less an obstacle than its formal structure and individual characterization. The Brothers Karamazov is a generically hybrid work, made up of Socratic dialogue, philosophical and theological digressions, soliloquies, and intellectual set pieces, all of which occur within the framework of a character-driven nineteenth-century novel. Moreover, the moral and psychological identities of the novel's primary characters are woven in both overt and subtle ways into the abstract ideologies that permeate the narrative. When Richard Brooks made the decision to adapt Dostoevsky's novel, he took on the daunting challenges of the text itself, as well as the demands of the studio system. M-G-M agreed to finance the project with the expectation that it would appeal to a wide audience and hence, would make money. In attempting to balance the need to attract an art-house audience receptive to sophisticated cinema and concurrently to satisfy corporate demands, Brooks pleased no one.

Yet however compromised the film might be, it does reveal much about Brooks as a writer and director, and looks ahead to some of his most successful work. His adaptation of The Brothers Karamazov (1958) marks a critical stage in Brooks's career. Prior to this film, he had adapted little of what we might call high literature. The Blackboard Jungle, Evan Hunter's novel about young urban delinquents, and Robert Ruark's bestselling Something of Value, both previously adapted by Brooks, come nearest to what one might call consequential works. But after The Brothers Karamazov, Brooks would move onto the material of Tennessee Williams, Sinclair Lewis, Joseph Conrad, and Truman Capote. Near the end of his career he would take on the boldly transgressive Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977). While his adaptation of The Brothers Karamazov is significantly flawed, it nevertheless positioned Brooks to engage more sophisticated and challenging material in the future.

Brooks's adaptation in the same year of Tennessee Williams's Cat on a Hot Tin Roof (1958) benefitted more than any other from his struggles with Dostoevsky. The film proved to be arguably his most successful. Brooks received Academy Award nominations and, if one values such things, the film did very well at the box office.