Purely Joyful Movie!

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Dashing Edmund Dantes Jr. (Louis Hayward), the son of the famed Count of Monte Cristo, uses the masked guise of the Torch to come to the aid of his beloved the fair Zona (Joan Bennett), royal grand duchess of Lichtenburg in an attempt to rescue both her and her country from falling into the hands of a determined dictator named General Gurko Lanen (George Sanders) who would be king and force poor Zona to be his queen.While this is pretty typical fare of its type, that doesn't make this swashbuckler any less entertaining. This certainly manages to capture one's interest and imagination throughout, its supporting players even proving more than up to said task particularly Ian Wolfe as Stadt and Montagu Love as Baron Von Neuhoff. In the end, while this does deliver the expected goods in terms of lush scenery, a dashing daring do lead hero in Hayward and a devious, devilishly clever lead villain in Sanders, exciting climactic swordplay and further action and intrigue and even perhaps some symbolism of the political intrigue at work in the world at the time this was filmed, it really offers up very few actual surprises and proves far too predictable overall. Regardless, this proves a most enjoyable film experience.

Some surprisingly glorious scenery and set direction highlight "The Count of Monte Cristo". Louis Hayward cuts a fine Count (aka "The Torch"). Joan Bennett is the beautiful queen - attracting the attentions of both Mr. Hayward and a deliciously wicked George Sanders. They, and the supporting players work very well together, and keep the movie interesting.My favorite of the many nicely envisioned scenes is when Ms. Bennett, in a garden prison, releases a bird from its cage. Cleverly symbolic. I also like the "graveyard" hiding place - decorated with skeletons. The film's ending is terrific. With a tightening of its script and a little more budget, this might have attained classic status. It's a great example of a cast and crew making the absolute most of what they were given by a studio. ******* The Son of Monte Cristo (12/5/40) Rowland V. Lee ~ Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett, George Sanders

SON OF MONTE CRISTO, a swashbuckler with elements of ZORRO, ZENDA and SCARLET PIMPERNEL that, despite the familiarities, I found entertaining and watchable. However it would have been far less entertaining were it not for the performance of George Sanders as the villain, whose character is more than the two dimensional villains normally connected with films of this genre. He has human frailties in his makeup, yet comes across as a leader with charisma -- many would follow such a man. Really, I had forgotten over the years what a consummate actor George Sanders was. SON OF MONTE CRISTO is his film, and his film alone, no doubt about it. There are underlying political implications here, released as it was on the eve of World War II. The crew-cut Sanders with his military bearing and the ever present Iron Cross on his chest really represented Adolf Hitler; both of them highly ambitious self-made men from the lower class, contemptuous of aristocracy and fully determined to oust the old established order. Thru his determination and ruthlessness Sanders nearly accomplishes his goal. Louis Hayward turns in a fairly good performance as a Pimpernel-style hero with his best moments in scenes with Sanders, and the mental fencing between them both. I am always aware of Hayward's physical movements in his films; he moved like a cat. Heroine Joan Bennett, is, well, Joan Bennett. Enough said. As an aside, I would like to comment on the fact that George Sanders hated dueling in his films, although when he had to, as here, he did well enough it seems. Later on in THE BLACK SWAN, he wore a red beard along with his dueling double to disguise the fact that it was not he with the sword against Ty Power, the latter incidentally, the second best duelist in Hollywood, in the footsteps of Basil Rathbone. One viewing of MONTE CRISTO will do for me, for it is not ZENDA, ZORRO nor the SCARLET PIMPERNEL.

I had watched this via a recording off local TV a few years ago and, though I subsequently erased it, I remember enjoying the film. As with director Lee's SON OF FRANKENSTEIN (1939), it's rather talky but never boring and emerges as an agreeable, though slightly overlong, swashbuckler (even if occasionally bordering on camp).The same director had previously made THE COUNT OF MONTE CRISTO (1934) and this sequel to it re-unites the stars (Joan Bennett, Louis Hayward) and writer (George Bruce) of the definitive screen version of yet another Alexandre Dumas classic, THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK (1939) - directed, interestingly enough, by James Whale. Incidentally, these two - both, as is THE SON OF MONTE CRISTO itself, produced by independent Edward Small - are perhaps the classic adventure films I would most like to watch and I wonder which DVD company owns the rights to all three titles... Still, the film is equally influenced by THE SCARLET PIMPERNEL (1934) - in its hero's dual personality of fop/crusader - and THE PRISONER OF ZENDA (1937) - the Ruritanian setting - and, despite being a 'B' movie at heart, it's stylishly handled (with Oscar-nominated art direction/set decoration). It also makes the most of its fine cast: good leads, wonderful villainy from George Sanders, a nice role for Ian Wolfe (billed "MacWolfe"!), and including three actors from Universal's Frankenstein saga - Lionel Belmore (as a bartender), Michael Mark (hilariously made up as a bishop) and Dwight Frye (in a 10-second bit as an embassy official).