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This 1951 film might be a bit stale. However, one has to consider that a lot of these portions were not clichés when the movie was made. That aside, I believe that you will find everything here that you might expect in any of these types of movies A good king, an evil plotting brother who seeks to usurp him, a womanizing, dashing captain, angry citizens, a treasure, and a beautiful dame.
Now, and this is the part that is different from the rest of the movie, that lady is actually the hero. Countess Christianne (Corday) is in fact supporting the subjugated farmers and citizens against the tyranny of King Louis Napoléon (the II or the III, I don’t remember) in 1858. But the truth is, Louis (David Bond), is not the main antagonist in this film. Charles LaRoche (Kroeger) is. Only someone named Napoleon was entitled to become king. As it so happens, LaRoche is the one who actually terrorizes the people.
LaRoche wants to change the rule of Louis by replacing his ministers with loyalists. Initially, a member of the counts wife plans to sell her counts treasure which casts doubts on their ability to acquire weapons, surprising LaRoche with this seemingly brilliant idea. She also hesitates about how some common citizens and farmers can afford weapons but yet wants to assist in the revolution. After learning about the treasure, LaRoche locks up Christianne’s uncle to seek out the sword that will unveil secrets to LaRoche.
As a matter of fact, the title assumes that this is an adaptation of the Count of Monte Cristo but its truly not any where near that. To be honest it is just a name that has been dropped with the hopes of ticking some boxes for an audience who is interested in that kind of literature. The lady Christianne figureheads mentions that her dog name is Richelieu makes one curious on why the dog and the historical figure are parallel to one another. Also, the movie in many aspects is way too refined for it, somewhere between the movies about pirates, which were on their way out of Hollywood, and ahead of the flood of biblical epics that were bound to these silver screens.
In Germany we had a name for it “coat and sword”, in English, they call it “cloak and dagger” Jim: I think those are more like spy movies: these would b swashbucklers?] Back then, these sort of historical adventure films were all the rage. In 1948, there was Gene Kelly’s The Three Musketeers, and then in 1952, Stewart Granger pretty much starred in every film with Scaramouche. The important thing about this flick that separates it from the rest is the general claim that “Countess Christianne” is the main hero here. She comes off like a female version of Zorro, riding across the night, persuading the revolting citizens in dark clothes to continue their fight and wearing a large black hat and mask.
The movie does encompass elements of the time it was made. The dashing Captain Renault who is charming (Montgomery) has some inside joke where for the life of him he can’t remember the name of the bar maid that he once had an affair with. He appeared to be fine regarding these things. Plus, he is also interested in Lady Christianne.
When he walks into her suite, immediately after she changed back to her normal self, he sits on the sofa with his shoes on the table, without permission. He also places a kiss on Lady Christianne’s lips against her wishes. When she lashes out, by saying, “You don’t behave like a gentlemen should,” he retorts, “Well, you don’t behave like a woman should.” You are left a bit baffled trying to grasp how women were meant to conduct themselves in 1951, when, for example, a shy lady came home only to be accosted by an unknown man who had made himself comfortable in her window. Even her nanny tries to reason, “A young lady ought not to run away from a man, she ought to catch one!” Things really have changed since that time!
To her secret pleasure, Lady Christianne has the Captain however feeble in comparison to evil LaRoche, and like all men in love, he is quite prepared to tilt the odds in Chambers favor. The only difference being he has to dispatch LaRoche rather blithely. At least that gives us some pleasure in hoping for this guy! I guess they did not have much money nor time for the movie.
The sensation is as if you have a handful of 4-6 places, one being the local pub, the other some grass fields that have a bit of woods in between, and the last one is Christianne’s uncle’s home. But the movie, is never boring. It was filmed in 1951 and has enough movement, dynamic and intrigue to maintain your attention in its sub 76 minute runtime.
Countess Christianne does enough riding, fencing, and swinging on chandeliers to be rightfully included in this genre’s female action heroines. Captain Renault comes off as a second class errol flynn, helping her and suggeting her “true motives” for cross-dressing and fighting. “You dont fight against the king! I think you are fighting against your female nature.” Even though Renault is the one that takes out the big bad, she rides with the royal dragoons and has her own agenda, taking out LaRoche’s right hand man Major Nicolet played by Conrad.
Sadly, I am not familiar with any of the cast of this epic film. Rita Corday was in films only for a limited period of time, from 1943 – 1954. In the other hand, Montgomery, whom I have also never heard about, was very active in the film industry and his career spanned from the early thirties to somewhere in the eighties. The only actor whose Nikolai I can identify is the one cast as major Nicolet, William Conrad. He later became a famous actor with numerous TV series under his belt (Cannon, Nero Wolfe, Jake & McCabe). Here he is quite young but appears in good shape when fencing.
In short, Sword of Monte Cristo is a great piece of cinema because it is innocent and does not (to borrow the modern expression)” trigger” something, but it is also not a “must see”. However, for its date of production, it is significant: how many films of this genre do you know of that were made during this period which featured a woman in the lead? Even so, it was no competition to Anne of the Indies that came out the same year.
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