How many versions of the famous novel are there in the world? Even the "best movie of all time "(sic) ,according to the IMDb users ,"Shawshank redemption", owes a lot to Alexandre Dumas and his count: Andy is Dantès and Red is Faria. Lewis Wallace 'said that "Ben Hur" was inspired by Edmond Dantès' fall and vengeance .And so on and on and on....
In France , the versions considered best were both Robert Vernay's (1942,black and white ,1953,,color) but it seems that it's now overshadowed by the 2024 film featuring Pierre Ninney,the unexpected blockbuster of the year.
Claude -Autant Lara 's effort was made at a time as a potboiler so that he was able to finance the works he was anxious to make ;the follow -up to his "Monte Cristo" was a taboo subject,the case of the conscientious objector ("tu ne tueras point" 1963)and he spent every last penny for a movie which scared everybody and of course was not a box office hit
So it's obvious that "le comte de Monte Cristo " is a commissioned film ;but it does not mean that it's a bad movie :it shows respect for the audience ;like Vernay's previous versions , it was divided in two "époques" (eras) , and the audience had to come back to the theater to see the whole (a three-hour French production was not profitable ;so the audience had to pay twice; the 2024 version was released as a whole of course and it's about as long as the 1961 effort)
Louis Jourdan was of course too old to portray a 22-year-old sailor ,but as the story spreads over twenty years , it's not a big problem ;Jourdan ,like Jean Marais in the fifties ,had the aristocratic look and a dash of mystery that work quite well in the second part ;the best scenes in the first part are those with Abbé Faria whose philosophy will be more important than the famous treasure ;the second part was simplified ,and sweetened as far as Mercédès's fate is concerned ;her husband's is much different from the novel ,and the part of Haydée is reduced to the minimum .
Although impersonal,for a man who was one the greatest directors France has ever had ("douce" "le diable au corps" "la traversée de Paris" )the movie was made with care and is never dull ;it's certainly enjoyable, even for today's audience.
