The Son of Monte Cristo

Plot synopsis:
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 enamoured 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 underground 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 fop 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.

Tags: action

Review:
This swashbuckler is developed in Europe on the epoch of Napoleon III empire .The Balkanes,steeped in the ancient traditions of romance and chivalry, people hold unswerving loyalty to the throne on which now sits the young great Duchess Zona(Joan Bennett)of Lichtenburg(a country similar to the ¨Prisoner of Zenda¨).She rules under the sinister shadow of one despotic tyrant(George Sanders)general Gurko Lamen who tries to take over .
The son of Edmond Dantes (Louis Hayward), the famous Count of Montecristo ,simulating to be a foppish count and masked is ¨the Torch¨ helping the Duchess.
In the film there are action,adventures,melodrama,fencing duels, a love story,derring-do and is pretty entertaining and funny.
Louis Hayward as masked avenger is very fine , his following films were a series of swashbucklers during fifteen years.
Joan Bennett as the attractive duchess is enjoyable and enticing .Both played in 1939,¨The man in the iron mask¨, and again teamed up for this agreeable adventure.George Sanders as always plays a dastardly villain.
With a good story full of adventure, action, and intrigue, plus a very good cast, "The Son of Monte Cristo" is an entertaining and enjoyable movie.
Louis Hayward and Joan Bennett work well in the lead roles, and George Sanders is always a threat to steal any scene he is in.
The story stands on its own, since the only connection it has with the often-filmed "The Count of Monte Cristo" is the main character's relationship with the previous Count.
So there's no need to be familiar with the original to be able to enjoy this one.Bennett is effective as the spirited Grand Duchess, and Hayward has a juicy role as the young Count, which gives him the chance to assume a different persona every so often during the course of the story.
As the brutally ambitious general, Sanders's appearance is quite a bit different from the more familiar look he has in his best-known roles, but his voice and mannerisms are easily recognizable, and he comes across with a good blend of suavity and menace.The story has the Grand Duchess being held at the mercy of the general, with the Count eagerly getting involved in the fictional country's affairs.
To have missed the remainder of this charming film, however, must now rank as one of my most serious misjudgements so far!George Sanders is superb as the ruthless Gurko Lanen, but a performance of this calibre in the role of the villain holds the danger of overbalancing the film in the absence of a totally outstanding performance on the part of his opponent.
But the introduction of Louis Hayward's slender, charming Monte Cristo as an outsider into the cliche'd Ruritanian mix proves to be the vital spark that not only saves the film but catapults it to rank as a joyous classic of its genre.
But expectations are constantly subverted; like its title character, the film has the endearing knack of not taking itself too seriously.This is one hero, for all his skill, who has been known to lose when launching himself gaily into battle against overwhelming numbers of his rival's henchmen; who takes his nom de guerre at the whim of a moment from the banner heading of an underground news-sheet; who shrugs off his enemy's imprecations and his lady's upbraiding both alike, with a merry grin; who clearly takes enormous enjoyment in sending himself up by playing the part of a foppish banker to deflect General Lanen's suspicions.
In a nod to the Dumas original, the tool that gains him access to the General's plans and confidence is the prospect of a banking loan from the fabled Monte Cristo fortune, and despite his title the young Count is able to point out that, like Gurko Lanen, Edmond Dantes the elder was a self-made man.For, if the hero is not entirely infallible - and all the more likeable for it - neither is the villain entirely without our sympathy.
As we see in the opening scenes, Lanen is neither a fool nor a coward, and despite his cultured suavity he is the son of a stonemason, and proud of it; a gifted peasant who has dared to aspire, first to the rulership of his tiny country, then to the hand of the greatest lady in the land, the Grand Duchess herself.
To this viewer at least, the proposal sounded genuine, evoking the old proverb that 'if she would not take him, still the lady might make him' - but any possibility for redemption is lost by the all-too-evident contempt of the Grand Duchess for the low-born upstart General.(And I never could see why Baron von Neuhof's arrest for plotting to bring in Louis Napoleon's troops in order to return his own faction to power gets dismissed as "trumped-up charges", when Lanen's last-ditch resort to a similar bargain with the Tsar is trumpeted as a vile betrayal of his country....)It's obvious from the start that this is one villain who is going to give the hero and his allies a run for their money; and so he does.
(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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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)..
Screenwriter George Bruce concocted a pastiche with affection in this film, wherein each scene and, indeed, each read line of dialogue is parodic in nature, although the work is so well crafted and edited that it has been accepted as simply an example of a swashbuckling adventure featuring some major studio players, including Louis Hayward and Joan Bennett.
The plot involves a contest between Hayward, as the Count of Monte Cristo, and the redoubtable George Sanders as his rival, Gurko Lanen, for the hand of Bennett, who portrays Zona, Grand Duchess of the imaginary Balkan state of Lichtenburg, during the mid-nineteenth century, and ancillary issues involving Lanen's craving for the small state's throne.
The three leads give full-bodied performances with straight-forward interpretations appropriate to a pastiche, while Hayward's rapid-fire intonation and expressions create a unique characterization, contrasted nicely with Sanders' satiny villain, all supported well by numerous Hollywood stalwarts, notably Ian Wolfe, Montague Love and Clayton Moore.
Joan Bennett is the beautiful queen - attracting the attentions of both Mr. Hayward and a deliciously wicked George Sanders.
Lee ~ Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett, George Sanders.
Another bigger than usual budget for an Edward Small film that is very much in the same pattern as THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK, with the same stars--LOUIS HAYWARD and JOAN BENNETT--with Hayward again as the man who assumes a disguise (as a fop) in order to win the freedom of the Duchess of Litchtenberg from the clutches of villainous GEORGE SANDERS and his traitorous ways.Full of intrigue, swashbuckling and occasional moments of romantic byplay, it's handicapped by Bennett's ice princess manner of performing in these costume roles as a damsel in distress--beautiful but expressionless.
LOUIS HAYWARD, on the other hand, is very animated and charming in the title role, showing prowess with the swordplay and finally getting the upper hand in a duel of wits and swords with Sanders.It's enjoyable but full of deja vu for those who've seen other swashbucklers of this ilk.
FLORENCE BATES has a few wry moments as Bennett's maid, and MONTAGU LOVE is effective as a wrongly imprisoned nobleman.The musical score by Edward Ward is helpful in sustaining an air of adventure but certainly not one of his more notable scores.Summing up: Standard entertainment that must have made Saturday matinée audiences happy in the '40s--but it's all just too familiar with no original touches..
While watching the movie, I was shocked that it took so long for the son of the count to get even with George Sanders as the ruthless Gurko Lanen.
The son of Monte Cristo, as the Torch, spends a lot of time trying to save Joan Bennett from the evil clutches of Saunders.
Is it s coincidence that with these two cowboy stars on hand that the script resembles more the "Mark of Zorro" than a sequel to "The Count of Monte Cristo"?.
Joan Bennett (Zona) is the Head of State of Lichtenburg, although the real ruler is George Sanders (Gurko) and he is planning a marriage to Joan so that he can legally assume power by becoming king.
It's up to Louis Hayward (Count of Monte Cristo) to sort out the mess.
As a previous commenter has stated,George Sanders' Gurko Lanen character isn't all unsympathetic,in fact in "reality" he would've been labeled a great national figure if he had pulled his coup off.
Miss Snooty is being properly Victorian looking down on the upstart,but if a climatic sword duel had been written the other way,I am assured Miss Bennett would've become a good Nasty Girl ala Woman In the Window,cooing and ooing at her Lany Nany.
And if Louis Hayward had actually been a banker from such a background as the original Count, his sympathies would have gone to a fellow self made man.
Louis Hayward never got quite the acclaim that swashbuckling actors like Tyrone Power and Errol Flynn did for these roles.
This film, The Son Of Monte Cristo was an Edward Small production released by United Artists and it shows Hayward at his best advantage as a larger than life hero who fought for honor, his lady's as well as a cause of freedom.As we know from Alexandre Dumas's novel The Count Of Monte Cristo, he became the wealthiest man in Europe with a taste for the cause of liberty and a man who as a banker knew how to settle all kinds of accounts.
His son Edmond Dantes, Jr. is following in Dad's footsteps and they've brought him to the Duchy of Lichtenberg whose military dictator George Sanders rules with a brutal hand in the name of the Queen, Joan Bennett.
But Sanders ambition knows no limits as the viewer of this film learns, he'll make Lichtenberg a satellite of a major European power if he can be king as well as military ruler.The film borrows from both The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Mark Of Zorro as Hayward turns Monte Cristo into a dandified fop representing his banking house.
By night however he becomes the hooded Torch, symbol of liberty for the people of Lichtenberg who keeps striking where Sanders least expects it.This film along with The Man In The Iron Mask from the previous year marked Hayward's apex as a film star.
Other stars like James Stewart, Tyrone Power, and Clark Gable made it all the way back, but sadly Hayward never did.Joan Bennett is a beautiful heroine willing to bear the unbearable for her people and life with Sanders as a husband and king is pretty unbearable.
Montagu Love who is usually a bad guy in these kind of films is a good guy here as the minister Bennett has confidence in.
As for Sanders this film is business as usual for him as he plays yet another distinctive cad as a villain.Heroes aren't real heroes in our more cynical age which is the reason that sadly films like The Son Of Monte Cristo aren't made any more..
I will admit to a soft spot for little Louis, the very small hero of this, and Joan Bennett has that haughty beauty of so many B pic heroines.
Since this comment compares the entire plot of the movie to World War II in 1940, don't read this if you are avoiding spoilers.I could not help noticing while watching the movie that the basic roles of the characters in the story match very closely to the major nations' roles in the war going on at the time.Gurko Lanen - Powerful, corrupt, ruthless, uses spies, back stabs - he is clearly the Germans Zona - Strong heart, good intentions, pure but realistic.
- the British, who, at this time stood alone against the Germans.Baron von Neuhof - Allied with Zona, outwitted and imprisoned - The French Prince Paul Pavlov - Signs a secret treaty that protects Lanen against a war with the French, secretly 'selling off' the citizens of Lichtenburg (who represent the Poles (or perhaps all of the free peoples of Europe), I think) - The Soviets (who else?) And finally - 'The Torch'/Count Monte Cristo - The savior that is willing to risk his life for Zona, even though he has no interest in Lichtenburg - his ambition is to fight oppression wherever it lies - The USA Naturally Stadt represents the German SA (Ernst Rohm) that was betrayed by Hitler after building the Nazi party into a viable force, and also obviously the Gestapo (German secret police).Remember that in 1940, The Soviet Union was NOT at war with Germany.
Louis Hayward stars in a film that is supposed to be a sequel to the story "The Count of Monte Cristo" but it really has very little to do with the story and really could have stood pretty well on its own.
A vicious general (George Sanders) has taken over the country and is keeping the rightful queen (Joan Bennett) from running the nation.
Posing as a character VERY similar to the foppish persona of the Scarlet Pimpernel, Monte Cristo joins up with the underground and tries REPEATEDLY a variety of plans to stop the General.Overall, this is a very fun swashbuckling film.
I liked how the Count was not above killing people (he killed at least 3or 4) and Sanders made for an excellent villain.
The filthy General George Sanders, who's been given the haircut of a World War I aviator, the direction to unloose his sneer whenever he likes, and is given the name of Gurko Lanen.
Sanders has him put away on a fake charge.At any rate, Louis Hayward, the son of the Count of Monte Cristo, and the richest man in Europe, takes up the cause of the reformers and worms his way into the palace posing as a hoity toity fop.
Joan Bennet is pretty without bringing much to the party.But George Sanders is outstanding.
The story of the skilled swordsman acting the pouf is from "The Mark of Zorro" and so is the scene in which a snarling soldier rips a treasonous paper from the public wall while surrounded by frightened peasants, and so is the hidden passageway in the basement and the wet footprints on the stone floor that lead to the secret panel in the wall.As for the working out of the plot, I leave it to you to decide whether Hayward escapes from the dungeon, interrupts the marriage of Sanders to Bennet, engages in a climactic sword fight with Sanders, kills him after a suitable wisecrack, and sweeps the Grand Duchess up in his arms at the end.That climactic sword fight is brief because neither actor is particularly graceful and neither knows anything about fencing.
"The Son of Monte Cristo" is a nice swashbuckler that stars Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett and George Sanders.
Hayward plays Edmund Dantes, Jr., Bennett is the Grand Duchess Zona of Lichtenburg, and Sanders is the evil – but almost likable, Gen. Gurko Lanen who would rule the kingdom.
The South African-born Hayward played mostly drama, mysteries and action films during his career.