Film review: The Count of Monte Cristo (1934)

I've made it only about two thirds of the way through the book, but this seemed pretty faithful to me.  Robert Donat (who stars in probably my favorite Hitchcock of all time, The 39 Steps, as well as the excellent The Ghost Goes West) is excellent as Edmond Dantes, the innocent sailor who gets thrown in prison for unwittingly delivering a letter from Napoleon, and vows revenge on the three men (a corrupt fellow-sailor, a corrupt judge (whose main reason for putting him in prison is that he can identify the judge's father as a Bonapartist) and the man who wants Dantes' betrothed for himself) as he suffers in France's equivalent of Alcatraz for decades.

Really, enough plot is packed into the novel for three full-length films, so it's understandably condensed (and devices like a switch of point-of-view are removed, which I don't think hurts (there's a reason I gave up on the book)) and there's quite a lot of expository talk, but it's undeniably gripping, packed with good characters and cliffhangers.  Pirates!  Treasure! Duels!  Financial ruin!  Devilry revealed in theatrical tableaux! A good-old-fashioned epic, which flies by, despite being nearly 2 hours long.  The good end happily, the bad unhappily - that is what fiction means.