The Son of Monte Cristo ***½ (1940, Louis Hayward, Joan Bennett, George Sanders) – Classic Movie Review 4649

Director Rowland V Lee’s 1940 adventure is a lavish, pacy and entertaining swashbuckler, reuniting the two stars of the previous year’s The Man in the Iron Mask (1939), Louis Hayward and Joan Bennett.

Louis Hayward stars as the masked son of the Count of Monte Cristo, Edmund Dantes Jr, crossing wits and swords with the devilish General Gurko Lanen (George Sanders) to win the lovely hand of a fair lady, the Grand Duchess Zona of Lichtenburg (Joan Bennett).

Although it is arguably not absolutely top drawer, maybe not quite as good as The Man in the Iron Mask, it is all done with very great panache and much gusto, and performed with huge zest and vigour by some very agreeable people who know exactly what they are doing.

This is an underrated sequel to the Robert Donat-starring The Count of Monte Cristo (1934), also directed by Lee, whose conscientious and often imaginative work here accounts for the capable storytelling. Edward Small’s production looks great using the same sets as well as many of the same cast and crew as his The Man in the Iron Mask. It was Oscar nominated for Best Art Direction by John DuCasse Schulze and Edward G Boyle.

It is 1865 and Lanen is dictator of Balkans state Lichtenburg, but its rightful ruler Zona hopes to get help from Napoleon III of France. Instead, Dantes Jr visits Lichtenburg and falls for Zona, soon agreeing to help her as a masked freedom fighter, masquerading as a Scarlet Pimpernel-style foppish banker.

It co-stars Florence Bates as Countess Mathilde Von Braun, Lionel Royce as Colonel Zimmerman, Montagu Love as the Prime Minister Baron Von Neuhoff, and Clayton Moore as Lieutenant Fritz Dorner.

Also in the cast are Ralph Byrd, Ian Wolfe, Georges Renevant, Michael Visaroff, Rand Brooks, Theodore Von Eltz, James Seay, Henry Brandon, Jack Mulhall, Edward Keane, Stanley Andrews, Lawrence Grant, Charles Trowbridge, Leyland Hodgson, Maurice Cass, Charles Waldron and Lionel Belmore.

George Robinson’s photography is in black and white, unfortunately. It is written by George Bruce, produced by Edward Small and scored by Edward Ward.

The film’s title comes from the unofficial sequel to The Count of Monte Cristo, written by Jules Lermina in 1881, but the script mixes in ideas from The Prisoner of Zenda and The Mark of Zorro and situations then current in Europe.

Weirdly, Sanders again played in a film set in fictitious country of Lichtenburg in the musical Call Me Madam (1953).

© Derek Winnert 2016 Classic Movie Review 4649

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