The Count of Monte Cristo (1934)

The Count of Monte Cristo (1934)As a story The Count of Monte Cristo still has great power. Case in point, the movie Sleepers where four young men from Hell's Kitchen were sexually abused in a reform school they were sentenced to. They found in the Alexandre Dumas novel a man they could understand very easily given their street code. Edmund Dantes code of street justice translates very easily to just about every culture in the world, be it the mean streets of New York or the post Napoleonic Era in France.



Robert Donat is Edmund Dantes an ordinary seaman who carries a letter from Elba about Napoleon Bonaparte's imminent return to France in 1815. However, he doesn't know the contents of the letter that he's carrying as it is given to him by his dying captain. Three men who have their own reasons not to see the truth come out imprison Donat without trial in an island prison off Marseilles.



After years there Donat effects his escape and plans to wreak vengeance on them, but not to kill them, instead he prefers to ruin and expose them because all three have risen to importance in France. He's now become the 'Count of Monte Cristo', having been bequeathed a hidden treasure by another inmate which he locates on the small Mediterranean island of Monte Cristo.



The kids from Sleepers as well as millions of others have learned what Dumas tried to convey, that hot blooded revenge killing is not the best strategy. If you have to take vengeance make sure that it is an extremely calculated series of moves.



Monte Cristo is the perfect kind of role for the cerebral Robert Donat. Donat makes us believe his transformation from the young and hopeful Edmund Dantes to the calculating Monte Cristo. If it were not for the Oscar Donat received for Goodbye Mr. Chips this one would have been the signature role of his career.



Also look for some good acting by Elissa Landi, Louis Calhern and especially Raymond Walburn in their parts. Walburn especially. He's usually the jovial gladhanding type, often a knave, but never a villain as he is here. Not a Walburn you're used to.



Enjoy and Seed!!