The Count of Monte Cristo *** (1975, Richard Chamberlain, Tony Curtis, Trevor Howard, Donald Pleasence, Louis Jourdan) – Classic Movie Review 3004

A dashing Richard Chamberlain swashes a merry buckle as Edmond Dantès, falsely sentenced to incarceration for life in the scary Chateau D’If jail, in screenwriter Sidney Carroll’s conscientious, literate and fairly faithful adaptation of the classic Alexandre Dumas Père adventure novel.

Chamberlain’s star performance, the strong support cast, the plush production, an air of joie de vivre and highly competent direction allow David Greene’s distinguished 1975 TV remake to take its place up there with a dozen or so earlier versions.

Louis Jourdan, who starred as Edmond Dantès in director Claude Autant-Lara’s 1961 French version, this time plays DeVillefort. Also note especially Tony Curtis’s amusing villain Fernand Mondego, Trevor Howard as the Abbé Faria, Donald Pleasence as Danglars and Kate Nelligan as Mercedes.

Also in the cast are Taryn Power, Dominic Guard, Ralph Michael, Harold Bromley, Carlo Puri and Alessio Orano. All in all, they do a grand job of polishing up and re-invigorating the old tale of romance, revenge and retribution. It is filmed handsomely at Cinecittà Studios in Rome.

It was remade in 2002 with Guy Pearce, Jim Caviezel and Richard Harris.

Louis Jourdan, the debonair French leading man who was brought to Hollywood by producer David O Selznick in 1947 to appear in Hitchcock’s The Paradine Case, died on February 14 2015, aged 93. He famously starred in Gigi with Leslie Caron and played the smooth villain Khan in the James Bond movie Octopussy.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 3004

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