"THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO" (1975) Review
There have been numerous adaptations of Alexandre Dumas père's 1844 novel, "The Count of Monte Cristo". I have seen at least three adaptations - two theatrical releases and a television movie. I had just recently viewed the latter, which aired on British television back in 1975, on DVD.
"THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO" begins in 1815 with the return of merchant sailor Edmond Dantès to his home port of Marseilles in order to marry his Catalan fiancée, Mercédès Herrera. Before dying during this last voyager, Edmond's captain Leclère charges Dantès to deliver a letter from Elba to an unknown man in Paris. On the eve of Dantès' wedding to Mercédès, Dantès' colleague Danglars, who is jealous of Edmond's promotion to captain, advises Edmond's friend Fernand Mondego to send an anonymous note accusing Dantès of being a supporter of the recently exiled Napoleon Bonaparte. Fernand is open to the suggestion due to his own jealousy of Edmond's engagement to Mercédès, whom he also loves. Edmond is arrested and interrogated by the local chief deputy prosecutor Gérard de Villefort. De Villefort is willing to release Edmond when he realizes that the latter is innocent of being a Bonapartist. But when he discovers that Edmond was charged in delivering a letter to his own father, another Bonapartist, de Villefort has Edmond sent to the Château d'If prison without a trial.
During his fourteen year imprisonment, Edmond meets a fellow prisoner named Abbé Faria, who gives the former a former education. When Faria finds himself on the verge of death, he informs Edmond about a treasure located on the Italian island of Monte Cristo. When Faria dies, Edmond takes his place in the burial sack and makes his escape from the Château d'If. After acquiring the Monte Cristo treasure, Edmond sets about seeking revenge against the three men responsible for his imprisonment.
Many literary and movie fans have complimented this adaptation as being "faithful" to Dumas' tale in compare to many others. I am a little more familiar with the 1845 novel than I was several years ago, when I had reviewed both the 1934 and 2002 adaptations. Which means I am quite aware that this adaptation is no more faithful than the others. But this did not bother me . . . somewhat. I have one or two issues that I will discuss a bit later. But overall, I found this adaptation, which was produced by a British television production company called ITC Entertainment, both satisfying and entertaining. I realize that my last description of the movie seems slightly tepid. Trust me, I do not regard this adaptation as tepid. It truly is quite good. I thought director David Greene and screenwriter Sidney Carroll provided television audiences with a lively and intelligent adaptation of Dumas' tale.
Both Greene and Carroll did an excellent job of maintaining a steady pace for the film's narrative. Starting with Edmond's return to Marseilles before Napoleon's Hundred Days return to power, to his fourteen year incarceration inside the Château d'If, and his discovery of the Monte Cristo treasure; I can honestly say that this television movie did not rush through the narrative. Well, most of it. This steady pacing seemed especially apparent in Dantes' elaborate plots to exact revenge against Mondego, Danglars and de Villefort. However . . . there were aspects of Dumas' narrative that could have stretched out a bit and I will focus on that later. Greene and Carroll also did a solid job in conveying how those fourteen years in prison, along with his desire for revenge had an impact upon his personality. This topic was not explored as much as I wish it had been, but it was featured in the film's plot.
I do have a few complaints. Like the 1934 movie, this television movie featured the character of Haydée, the daughter of a pasha who had been betrayed and murdered by Ferdinand Mondego and one of Edmond's major allies. In the novel, Haydée became Edmond's lover by the story's end. In this television movie, she is basically an ally who was limited to two scenes. I suspect that the character's North African background made the producers unwilling to to be faithful to Dumas' novel and give Isabelle De Valvert, who had portrayed Haydée, more screen time, aside from two scenes. Pity. Speaking of Edmond's love life, I noticed that once he became the Count of Monte Cristo, Richard Chamberlain and Kate Nelligan, who portrayed Mercédès Mondego, barely shared any screen time together. In fact, it seemed as if Edmond barely thought about Mercédès. So when the film ended with him rushing toward Mercédès to declare his never ending love for her, it seemed so false . . . and rushed. I do not recall seeing any build up to this scene.
One must remember that "THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO" is not only a drama, but also a swashbuckler. And that means action sequences. There were not that many in the movie, but there were a few memorable moments. The final action sequence featured a duel between Edmond and his former friend, Mondego. It never happened in the novel, but I found it interesting to watch a duel between two former onscreen swashbucklers - Richard Chamberlain and Tony Curtis. It was . . . decent. But if I must be honest, I was more impressed by the duel between Carlo Puri and Alessio Orano, who portrayed Andrea Benedetto (a person set up by Edmond to be a part of de Villefort's past) and Alessio Orano, who portrayed a former cowardly neighbor of Edmond named Caderousse. Neither duel was particularly long, but I found the Benedetto-Caderousse duel to be more physical and exciting.
I have mixed views of the movie's production values. On one hand, I found myself very impressed by Walter Patriarca's production designs and Andrew Patriarca's art direction. I thought both did an excellent job of utilizing the film's Italian locations to re-create early 19th century France and Italy. I was also impressed by Aldo Tonti's solid photography for the film. I found it clear and somewhat colorful. My feelings regarding the film's costumes are not as positive. I noticed that there is no costume designer named for the film. Instead, Luciana Marinucci was hired as the costume/wardrobe "supervisor". This makes me wonder if a good deal of the film's costumes came from warehouses in Italy. A good deal of the fabrics used for movie's costumes struck me as questionable. Cheap. And quite frankly, I found this somewhat disappointing for a first-rate movie like this. I also found the hairstyle worn by actress Taryn Power, as shown in the image below:
It bore no resemblance to the hairstyles worn by women during the early 1830s.
I certainly had no complaints about the film's cast. All either gave solid or excellent performances. The movie boasted solid performances from the likes of Anthony Dawson, Angelo Infanti, Harold Bromley, George Willing, Alessio Orano, Taryn Power, Dominic Guard, Dominic Barto and Isabelle De Valvert. Although I have a high regard for Kate Nelligan as an actress, I must admit that I was not that overly impressed by her performance as Mercédès Mondego. I thought it was solid, but not particularly mind blowing. It seemed as if she really had not much material to work with, aside from those scenes that featured Edmond's arrest and her final scene.
But thankfully, "THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO" does boast some excellent and memorable performances. One came from Carlo Puri, who gave a very charismatic performance as Andrea Benedetto, a former galleys convict used by Edmond in his scheme against Gérard de Villefort. Speaking of the latter, Louis Jordan was superb as the ambitious prosecutor who was responsible for Edmond's incarceration in the first place. I was especially impressed by his performance in the scene that featured the revelation about the illegitimate son he had tried to kill years earlier. Another superb performance came from Donald Pleasence as Danglars. I thought he did an excellent job in transforming his character from a resentful and jealous seaman into the greedy banker. Trevor Howard earned a well deserved Emmy nomination for his portrayal of Edmond's mentor, the imprisoned former soldier-turned-priest. I found his last scene especially poignant to watch. This was probably the first production in which I saw Tony Curtis portray a villain
And I thought he gave an excellent performance as the broodingly jealous Ferdinand Mondego, who seemed to have no qualms about destroying others for the sake of his feelings and his ambitions. "THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO" proved to be Richard Chamberlain's second (or third) production that was an adaptation of an Alexandre Dumas père novel. Like Howard, he had earned a well deserved Emmy nomination for his portrayal of the revenge driven Edmond Dantès. Chamberlain did a superb job in conveying the growing development of Edmond's character from the clean-cut, yet ambitious young seaman, to the long-suffering prisoner wallowing in despair and finally, the cool and manipulative man, whose desire for vengeance had blinded him from the suffering of other innocents.
In the end, I have some problems with certain aspects of "THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO", including the portrayal of some characters , a few changes in the narrative's ending and some of the costumes. Despite them, I can honestly say that I enjoyed the television movie and thought it did a fine job adapting Alexandre Dumas père novel. And this is due to Sidney Carroll's well-written screenplay, David Greene's solid direction and an excellent cast led by the always superb Richard Chamberlain.
