The Count of Monte Christo (Video Yesteryear, 1996). [Category: Early Film & TV]

This is really hard to follow if you're not familiar with the Alexandre Dumas novel it's based on. Part of the reason is the poor-quality print––peoples' faces are washed out, so it's hard to tell them apart, and it's practically impossible to read the letters that appear in the film (and many of them are important to the plot). But it seems to be a standard revenge tale. A man is unjustly imprisoned due to the machinations of three jealous comrades. He spends years digging his way out of his prison cell, only to find he's dug his way into the cell of another prisoner. This other prisoner promptly dies, but not before giving our hero a treasure map of the island of Monte Christo. And his death gives our hero the opportunity to escape by substituting himself for the corpse in the body bag. He ends up getting to Monte Christo and aquiring the treasure, and then returns home and spends the rest of the film getting revenge on his conspirators. Lots of swordplay and adventure, but it's not really much fun to watch, unfortunately, due to the problems listed above. Video Yesteryear did give it a nice movie organ soundtrack, though. A 1912 Famous Players film.

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: **. Historical Interest: ****. Overall Rating: **.

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