Mask of the Avenger ** (1951, John Derek, Anthony Quinn, Jody Lawrance) – Classic Movie Review 7819

Set in Italy in 1848, director Phil Karlson’s busy, action-packed and modestly entertaining 1951 period action adventure romp Mask of the Avenger is distantly related to its supposed source in Alexander Dumas’s novel The Count of Monte Cristo, but filtered through a revised story by George Bruce.

The handsome young John Derek swashes a swish buckle as a Monte Cristo-style count’s son called Captain Renato Dimorna, hell bent on avenging himself on his father’s killer, corrupt military governor Viovanni Larocca (Anthony Quinn), who at first saves him.

Though the screenplay by Jesse L Lasky Jr is fairly pedestrian and the handling not especially imaginative, Karlson’s film is at least brisk, capable and pacy, with a solid basis in Dumas’s and Bruce’s story, and it is propelled by a jaunty music score by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco.

Both the two lively star turns and Charles Lawton Jr’s gorgeous Technicolor cinematography help it along, but Columbia Pictures’ production under Hunt Stromberg and some of the other performances, especially Jody Lawrance as the love interest Maria d’Orsini, are very routine.

Also in the cast are Arnold Moss, Eugene Iglesias, Harry Cording, Ian Wolfe, Philip Van Zandt, Minerva Urecal, Trevor Bardette, Dickie LeRoy, Carlo Tricoli, David Bond, Wilton Graff, Tristram Coffin, Gregory Gaye, Chuck Hamilton, Mickey Simpson, Lester Sharpe, Ric Roman and Belle Mitchell.

Mask of the Avenger is directed by Phil Karlson, runs 83 minutes, is made and released by Columbia Pictures Corporation, is written by Jesse L Lasky Jr (screenplay), Ralph Gilbert Bettison (adaptation) and Philip MacDonald (adaptation), is shot in Technicolor by Charles Lawton Jr, is produced by Hunt Stromberg, is scored by Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco and Maurice Stoloff (musical director) and designed by Harold H MacArthur.

It was shot at the Iverson Ranch, Chatsworth, Los Angeles, the regular location for many Westerns of the day.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7819

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