The Son of Monte Cristo | |
---|---|
Directed by | Rowland V. Lee |
Written by | George Bruce |
Produced by | Edward Small |
Starring | |
Cinematography | George Robinson |
Edited by | Arthur Roberts |
Music by | Edward Ward |
Production company | Edward Small Productions |
Distributed by | United Artists |
Release dates |
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Running time | 102 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $650,000 [3] |
Box office | 2,213,068 admissions (France, 1946) [4] |
The Son of Monte Cristo is a 1940 American black-and-white swashbuckling adventure film from United Artists, produced by Edward Small, directed by Rowland V. Lee, that stars Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett, and George Sanders. The Small production uses the same sets and many of the same cast and production crew as his previous year's production of The Man in the Iron Mask . [5] Hayward returned to star in Small's The Return of Monte Cristo (1946).
The film takes the same name as the unofficial sequel to The Count of Monte Cristo , namely The Son of Monte Cristo, written by Jules Lermina in 1881. Using elements from several romantic swashbucklers of the time such as The Prisoner of Zenda and The Mark of Zorro the production also mirrors the situation of Continental Europe in 1939–1940.
In 1865, the proletarian General Gurko Lanen (George Sanders) becomes the behind-the-scenes dictator of the Grand Duchy of Lichtenburg located in the Balkans. Gurko suppresses the clergy and the free press and imprisons the Prime Minister Baron Von Neuhoff (Montagu Love). The rightful ruler of the Grand Duchy, the Grand Duchess Zona (Joan Bennett), hopes to get aid from Napoleon III of France and makes her escape pursued by a troop of Hussars loyal to Gurko. While on a hunting trip, the visiting Count of Monte Cristo (Louis Hayward), rescues her. The Count escorts the Grand Duchess Zona to a neutral country, but Gurko's Hussars violate international neutrality to return the Grand Duchess and her lady-in-waiting back to Lichtenburg.
The count has become romantically enamored of Zona and undertakes to help her, visiting the Grand Duchy where he falls in with the underground resistance movement of Lichtenburg. He befriends the loyal Lt. Dorner (Clayton Moore) of the palace guard who knows a variety of secret passages leading from the Grand Ducal Palace to the literal catacombs of the Grand Duchy.
Discovering that Baron Von Neuhoff is to be executed, the Count gains entry to the palace through his previously being asked for a large loan of French Francs by Gurko and plays the role of a cowardly fopish international banker. There he overhears Gurko meeting with the French Ambassador (Georges Renavent) who raises the issue of human rights in the Grand Duchy. Gurko counters him by saying he is signing a non aggression pact with Russia protecting Lichtenburg from any French threats. Gurko schemes to gain the nation's loyalty by marrying the Grand Duchess and keeping the pact with Russia a secret.
The count becomes a masked freedom fighter named "The Torch" after the underground newspaper in order to save the Grand Duchy. He then sets out to right the wrongs and capture the heart of the woman he loves.
A sequel to The Count of Monte Cristo was announced almost immediately after the first film's success. [6] At one stage Robert Donat, Melvyn Douglas and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. were named as stars; Jean Arthur was also being considered for a lead role. [7]
The Son of Monte Cristo was widely panned by critics. Bosley Crowther of The New York Times called the film "just a routine retelling of a conventional sword-and-cape adventure tale" and "a juvenile masquerade, acted as such and strangely suggestive of a Flash Gordon serial in costume. The old Count should turn in his grave". [8] Variety called it, "... (a) plodding offspring of a famed father ... Director Rowland V. Lee must share the pillory with writer George Bruce for 'The Son', although Louis Hayward and Joan Bennett in the top roles are not far from the stocks". [9]
Harrison's Reports wrote: "Patrons who remember how entertaining was 'The Count of Monte Cristo' may flock to the box-office to see this picture. But if they expect to find this as exciting as the first, they will be disappointed. The story is routine and the plot developments obvious; moreover, even though the players try hard, they are not very convincing". [10] Film Daily wrote: "Picture should entertain the average audience, although it has several faults. The dialogue is static in places and the situations are telegraphed. In addition, Miss Bennett and George Sanders are not overly animated in their characterizations". [11] John Mosher of The New Yorker wrote: The Son of Monte Cristo seems to be arranged for young persons, or for those of arrested mental development, who also should have a place in our considerations at this season". [12]
The film was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Art Direction by John DuCasse Schulze and Edward G. Boyle. [13]
"When the spirit of justice is crushed in one country, men will rise to defend it in all countries" - Baron Von Neuhoff
The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel written by French author Alexandre Dumas (père) serialized from 1844 to 1846. It is one of the author's most popular works, along with The Three Musketeers. Like many of his novels, it was expanded from plot outlines suggested by his collaborating ghostwriter Auguste Maquet.
George Henry Sanders was a British actor and singer whose career spanned over 40 years. His heavy, upper-class English accent and smooth bass voice often led him to be cast as sophisticated but villainous characters. He is remembered for his roles as wicked Jack Favell in Rebecca (1940), Scott ffolliott in Foreign Correspondent, The Saran of Gaza in Samson and Delilah, theater critic Addison DeWitt in All About Eve, Sir Brian De Bois-Guilbert in Ivanhoe (1952), King Richard the Lionheart in King Richard and the Crusaders (1954), Mr. Freeze in a two-part episode of Batman (1966), and the voice of Shere Khan in Disney's The Jungle Book (1967). He also starred as Simon Templar, in 5 of the 8 films in The Saint series (1939–1941), and as a suave Saint-like crimefighter in the first 4 of the 16 The Falcon films (1941–1942).
Joan Geraldine Bennett was an American stage, film, and television actress, one of three acting sisters from a show-business family. Beginning her career on the stage, Bennett appeared in more than 70 films from the era of silent films, well into the sound era. She is best remembered for her film noir femme fatale roles in director Fritz Lang's films—including Man Hunt (1941), The Woman in the Window (1944), and Scarlet Street (1945)—and for her television role as matriarch Elizabeth Collins Stoddard in the gothic 1960s soap opera Dark Shadows, for which she received an Emmy nomination in 1968.
Call Me Madam is a Broadway musical written by Howard Lindsay and Russel Crouse, with music and lyrics by Irving Berlin.
Louis Charles Hayward was a South African-born, British-American actor.
Edward Small was an American film producer from the late 1920s through 1970, who was enormously prolific over a 50-year career. He is best known for the movies The Count of Monte Cristo (1934), The Man in the Iron Mask (1939), The Corsican Brothers (1941), Brewster's Millions (1945), Raw Deal (1948), Black Magic (1949), Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and Solomon and Sheba (1959).
The Count of Monte Cristo is a 1956 British cult swashbuckler adventure television series produced by ITC Entertainment/TPA and adapted very loosely from the 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas by Sidney Marshall. It premiered in the UK in early 1956 and ran for 39 thirty-minute episodes dramatizing the continuing adventures of Edmond Dantès, the self-styled Count of Monte Cristo, during the reign of Louis Philippe I d'Orléans, King of the French from 1830 to 1848. The first twelve episodes were filmed in the United States, at the Hal Roach studios, with the rest being filmed at ITC's traditional home of Elstree.
Percy Reginald Lawrence-Grant was an English actor known for supporting roles in films such as The Living Ghost, I'll Tell the World, Shanghai Express, The Mask of Fu Manchu and Son of Frankenstein. He was host of the 4th Academy Awards ceremonies in 1931.
The Count of Monte Cristo is a 1934 American adventure film directed by Rowland V. Lee and starring Robert Donat and Elissa Landi. Based on the 1844 novel The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, the story concerns a man who is unjustly imprisoned for 20 years for innocently delivering a letter entrusted to him. When he finally escapes, he seeks revenge against the greedy men who conspired to put him in prison.
Lichtenburg may refer to:
Friedrich Freiherr von der Trenck was a Prussian officer, adventurer, and author.
Montagu Love was an English screen, stage and vaudeville actor.
Georges Renavent was a French-American actor in film, Broadway plays and operator of American Grand Guignol. He was born in Paris, France. In 1914, he immigrated to the United States, crossing the frontier between Canada and Vermont.
The Man in the Iron Mask is a 1939 American historical adventure film very loosely adapted from the last section of the 1847–1850 novel The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexandre Dumas, père, which is itself based on the French legend of the Man in the Iron Mask.
A swashbuckler film is characterised by swordfighting and adventurous heroic characters, known as swashbucklers. While morality is typically clear-cut, heroes and villains alike often, but not always, follow a code of honor. Some swashbuckler films have romantic elements, most frequently a damsel in distress. Both real and fictional historical events often feature prominently in the plot.
Call Me Madam is a 1953 American Technicolor musical film directed by Walter Lang, with songs by Irving Berlin, based on the 1950 stage musical of the same name.
Nikolaus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Oldenburg was the eldest son of Frederick Augustus II, Grand Duke of Oldenburg, who was the last ruling Grand Duke of Oldenburg.
Aimé Clariond was a French stage and film actor.
The Return of Monte Cristo is a 1946 American historical adventure film directed by Henry Levin and starring Louis Hayward, Barbara Britton and George Macready. It was produced by Edward Small for distribution by Columbia Pictures. A swashbuckler, it is a sequel to The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) and The Son of Monte Cristo (1940).
Lionel Royce was an Austrian-American actor of stage and screen, also known during his European career as Leo Reuss. He began his career in theater in Vienna, Austria, in 1919, before moving to Berlin in 1925. Being Jewish, his work began to be restricted in the 1930s in Nazi Germany. Fleeing the Nazis he returned to Austria in 1936, where to hide his heritage, he created the persona of Kaspar Brandhofer, a Tyrolian peasant, and became a sensation as a natural actor on the stage in Vienna. When he admitted his ruse, he became blacklisted in Austria, after which he emigrated to the United States in 1937. He had an active film career in the United States, appearing in almost 40 films between 1938 and 1946. While on tour with the USO, he died in Manila in 1946.