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The Count of Monte Cristo (dir. by Roland V. Lee)

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

Note that this maybe a bit brief and off tangent. This may be one of the first reviews I’ve written for a film created well before my time. I won’t have as many movie references or personal anecdotes to add here.

I love the story of The Count of Monte Cristo. At the time of this writing, it can be found on both Amazon Prime and on Tubi.

Written in 1844 by Alexandre Dumas, it’s a tale of revenge and depending on which version you watch, there’s also a bit of redemption to it. Though it’s adapted numerous times on stage and screen, I’m familiar with 3 main movie versions. You have the modern 2002 version from Kevin Reynolds, starring Jim Caviezel, Henry Cavill and Guy Pearce. There’s the 1975 TV Movie (my personal favorite), directed by David Greene and starring Richard Chamberlain, Donald Pleasance, Tony Curtis and Kate Nelligan. And finally, we have the classic 1934 rendition, directed by Donald V. Lee and starring Robert Donat, Elissa Landi, Sidney Blackmer and Louis Calhern. Most audiences may know of the film from the references made of it in 2005’s V for Vendetta.

The Count of Monte Cristo is the story of Edmund Dantes (Robert Donat, The 39 Steps) , a sailor who has everything going for him. He’s the newly minted Captain of the Pharaon, a title bestowed to him after the original captain died during a voyage near the island of Elba. Before the original Captain passes, he gives Edmond a letter to be delivered to an individual who will make himself known. This promotion and the letter also draws the jealous eyes of the would be Captain Danglars (Raymond Walburn, Christmas in July). Edmond has the heart of the lovely Mercedes de Rosas (Elissa Landi, The Yellow Ticket), but not the affections of Mercedes’ Mother (Georgia Caine, Remember the Night), the Madame de Rosas. Together with Fernand Mondego (Sidney Blackmer, Rosemary’s Baby), they often try to convince Mercedes to find someone better.

During the party for his wedding, Edmond meets the letter’s recipient and makes the delivery. Shortly afterward, both this man and Edmond are arrested. We learn the man is the father of The King’s Magistrate, Renee de DeVillefort (Louis Calhern, Julius Caesar). Choosing to protect his father (now considered a Bonapartist), DeVillfort puts on the blame on Dantes. With Mondego and Danglars as co-conspirators, they send Dantes to the dreaded Chateau D’if, an Alcatraz-like prison on the sea. To make things worse, after Napoleon is defeated, Edmond’s captors list him as deceased and his name is struck from the prison record. Dantes spends nearly 15 years in the Chateau, falling out of everyone’s memory. During his time, he discovers and befriends the Abbe Faria (O.P. Heggie, Anne of Green Gables), another prisoner who teaches Dantes various topics of the world. The Abbe also shares the secret of the De Sparda Treasure, hidden away just off the island of Monte Cristo. Edmond eventually escapes the Chateau D’If, acquires the treasure and returns to the Paris as the mysterious Count of Monte Cristo.

The film has fine performances throughout, given the time frame. Donat’s Dantes is quite naive prior to the imprisonment, but as the Count, I felt he brought a lot of style and class to the character. It was much like watching an old serial of The Batman or The Shadow. Another major surprise (for me, anyway) was Sidney Blackmer as Mondego. I’ve only ever seen Blackmer as the old and strange Roman Castavet in Roman Polanski’s Rosemary Baby, so it was very interesting to see him in his prime. There’s a nice duel between Mondego and Dantes that showcased Blackmer’s athleticism as well as his acting. I also enjoyed Walburn’s Danglars, who felt like a weasel you’d find in a classic Disney animated film.

Visually, for a black and white film, there’s some good use of light and shadow here, particularly during the dimly lit scenes in the Chateau D’If and the face off between the Count and Mondego.

How Edmond chooses to face his enemies was interesting. A bit of scandal for one, greed for another and a full-on courtroom drama for a third. I thought the court case element was bit much, but given where the story was going, it made sense. Overall, The Count of Monte Cristo is a wonderful classic with great pacing throughout.

Quick Review: The Last Stop at Yuma County (dir. by Francis Galluppi)

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

This review might be a bit biased, as I’m a fan of actor Jim Cummings’ work. I loved The Wolf of Snow Hollow and his brief cameo in Halloween Kills. The moment Francis Galluppi’s Last Stop at Yuma County was released on Apple Films, I bought it. Not even a rental. At 90 minutes, it’s a short crime thriller that fits in well with those late night gems you may come across.

On his way home to celebrate his daughter’s birthday, a Knife Salesman (Cummings) arrives at a gas station in Yuma County, Arizona, only to find that the station’s gas truck is a bit delayed. He decides to wait for the truck in the the gas station’s diner. Additionally, the news on the radio is going around about a recent heist of a nearby bank. Similar to movies such as Legion or Tales From the Crypt Presents : Demon Knight, the Diner makes a great setting for a standoff when the two robbers make an appearance – played by Richard Brake (Barbarian) and Nicolas Logan (I Care a Lot). Can the Knife Salesman and the local waitress, Charlotte (Jocelin Donahue, The House of the Devil) make it through the day and save themselves?

For his first production, Galluppi handled things well, I felt. The shots are evenly paced, well lit and framed in such a way where it doesn’t feel like the camera lingers too much or is too shaky. The strongest part of The Last Stop in Yuma County are the characters. Cummings, Brake, and Logan are the stand outs, but everyone contributes to the story in their way. The film dances between drama and comedy pretty quick, which had me chucking in moments before getting jolted back to reality with the ever changing situation.

If the movie has any kind of drawback, it’s that some of the story’s elements aren’t fully closed up by the time the film ends. It’s not a terrible thing, considering where the focus of the story moves, but a little more closure would have been nice. Outside of that, The Last Stop at Yuma County is worth the watch.

Disney returns to the Pride Lands in the Mufasa: The Lion King Trailer!

Posted on by Leonard Wilson

Disney’s Mufasa: The Lion King adds a new bit of Movie Trivia in the world. As it stands, James Earl Jones has voiced two characters (the other being Darth Vader, of course) that have had prequels created for them. I’m hoping that Universal decides to give us that Thulsa Doom backstory we all know we’re secretly longing for.

Despite not asking for a prequel, the trailer looks pretty good. Mufasa doesn’t appear to be of any special lineage, but that makes one wonder how he became the King of Pride Rock. Barry Jenkins (Moonlight, If Beale Street Could Talk) brings together some talent in John Kani, Seth Rogen, Mads Mikkelsen, Thandiwe Newton, Donald Glover, Aaron Pierre, and Billy Eichner. The film also introduces Blue Ivy Carter, along with her mom, Beyonce Knowles-Carter. With music by Lin-Manuel Miranda (Moana, In the Heights), this should be interesting.

Mufasa: The Lion King premieres this December.

Late Night Retro Television Review: Highway to Heaven 2.4 “Cindy”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Late Night Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Thursdays, I will be reviewing Highway to Heaven, which aired on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Freevee and several other services!

This week, Jonathan and Mark travel to Hollywood …. again.

Episode 2.4 “Cindy”

(Dir by Michael Landon, originally aired on October 23rd, 1985)

Vincent DeGeralimo (Bill Macy) is a fast-talking, good-hearted talent agent who is still trying to sell acts that were out-of-style during Vaudeville.  He wants to get a booking for a lion tamer but Jonathan appears to him and says that Vincent’s main concern should be helping out his daughter.

Cindy DeGeralimo (Hallie Todd) is an aspiring actress who is currently working as a waitress in a diner.  Her evil boss (Alice Ghostley) has three untalented daughters who all want to be actresses as well.  Cindy’s newest coworker, Mark Gordon, just wants to meet a movie star.

Pretending to work in the mailroom of a major Hollywood studio, Jonathan convinces producer Maxim Prince (Kip Gilman) that the best way to find a star for his new picture would be to hold a ball and invite every aspiring actress in town to attend.

Can you see where this is going?  Yep, it’s a remake of Cinderella, except this time Cinderella has a pushy father who keeps trying to change her before she goes to the ball.  Cindy finally gets fed up and says that she wants to be a star but she also doesn’t want to be some sort of Hollywood phony.  Vincent accepts Cindy’s feelings and everything works out in the end.

Usually, I’m pretty lenient when it comes to reviewing this show but this episode just annoyed me.  Even by the standards of Highway to Heaven, it was overly sentimental and heavy-handed.  Bill Macy gave such a frantic performance as Vincent that it was hard to watch him.  As well, Mark was so excited about being in Hollywood that I found myself wondering if he forgot about all the time he spent in Hollywood during the first season.

Indeed, this is not the first episode of Highway to Heaven to feature Jonathan dealing with the entertainment industry and I imagine it won’t be the last.  Considering how much control Michael Landon had over this show, I always get the feeling that the Hollywood episodes were personal for him, especially as they always seemed to deal with parents regretting the fact that they put work ahead of their families.  That said, the portrayal of Hollywood in this episode was so old-fashioned and idealized that I get the feeling that it was Landon’s way of showing what he wished Hollywood was like as opposed to what it actually was.  Landon’s Hollywood is a town where anyone can be a star and anyone can find a happiness.

As for this episode, it was a bit too corny for its own good.  Next week, though, Jonathan battles the Devil for Mark’s soul!  That should be fun.

Retro Television Reviews: Miami Vice 2.1 and 2.2 “The Prodigal Son”

Posted on by Lisa Marie Bowman

Welcome to Retro Television Reviews, a feature where we review some of our favorite and least favorite shows of the past!  On Mondays, I will be reviewing Miami Vice, which ran on NBC from 1984 to 1989.  The entire show is currently streaming on Tubi!

This week, the second season with a two-hour long premiere!  Crockett and Tubbs are going to New York!

Episode 2.1 and 2.2 “The Prodigal Son”

(Dir by Paul Michael Glaser, originally aired on September 27th, 1985)

The second season premiere of Miami Vice opens with a series of set pieces.

In Panama, Crockett and Tubbs visit a secret military base in the jungle and are disgusted to learn how the Panamanian military gets information about drug smugglers.  Tubbs and Crockett find one horribly tortured man in a tent.  Tubbs gives him a drink of water and gets what information he can from the man.  Crockett and Tubbs leave the tent.  A gunshot rings out as the involuntary informant is executed.  When the shot rings out, both Crockett and Tubbs turn back to the tent in slow motion, stunned by the brutality of their allies in the Drug War.  Indeed, it’s hard not to compare the scene to the famous photograph of a South Vietnamese general executing a communist during the Vietnam War.

The Vietnam analogy continues with the next scene.  In the Everglades, Crockett, Tubbs, and the entire Vice Squad work with the DEA to ambush the Revilla cousins as they bring drugs into the U.S.  Sitting in the swamp, Crockett compares the experience to Vietnam, suggesting that the war on the drugs is just as futile and as costly.  And indeed, it’s hard not to notice that every drug dealer that Crockett and Tubbs has taken down over the course of this show has immediately been replaced by another.  The Revillas are just another in a long line of people getting rich off of other people’s addictions.

After the bust goes down, Crockett and Tubbs arrives at a celebratory party, just to discover that almost of all of the undercover DEA agents have been murdered and Gina has been seriously wounded.  There is something very haunting about this scene, with Crockett and Tubbs rushing through a penthouse and seeing a dead body in almost every room.

At a meeting in a stark office, the head DEA agent explains that his agency has been compromised and all of his undercover agents have been unmasked.  Someone has to go to New York and work undercover to take down the Revillas but it can’t be any of his people.  Since the Revillas are smuggling their stuff in through Miami, Miami Vice has jurisdiction.  Paging Crockett and Tubbs!

Working undercover as Burnett and Cooper, Crockett and Tubbs visit a low-level drug dealer (played by Gene Simmons) who lives on a yacht and who gives them the name of a connection in New York City.

From there, Miami Vice moves to New York City, where Crockett and Tubbs meet a low-level criminal named Jimmy Borges (played by an almost impossibly young Penn Jillette) and they try to infiltrate the Revilla organization.  Along the way, Tubbs meets up with Valerie (Pam Grier) and discovers that she has apparently lost herself working undercover.  Meanwhile, Crockett has a brief — and kind of weird — romance with a photographer named Margaret (Susan Hess).

(“I like guns,” she says when Crockett demands to know why she stole his.)

With Crockett and Tubbs leaving Miami for New York in order to get revenge for a colleague who was wounded during an operation, The Prodigal Son almost feels like the pilot in reverse.  Also, much like the pilot, the exact details of The Prodigal Son‘s story are often less important than how the story is told.  This episode is full of moody shots of our heroes walking through New York while songs like You Belong To The City play on the soundtrack.  (There’s also a song from Phil Collins, undoubtedly included to bring back memories of the In The Air Tonight scene from the pilot.)  It’s all very entertaining to watch, even if the story itself doesn’t always make total sense.  Indeed, you really do have to wonder how all of these criminals keep falling for Sonny’s undercover identity as Sonny Burnett.  You would think that someone would eventually notice that anyone who buys from Sonny Burnett seems to get busted the very next day.

Stylish as the storytelling may be, this episode actually does have something on its mind.  Those lines comparing the War on Drugs to the Vietnam Conflict was not just throwaways.  Towards the end of the episode, Crockett and Tubbs follow a lead to the offices of J.J. Johnston (Julian Beck, the ghost preacher from Poltergeist II).  The skeletal Johnston is an investor of some sort.  He has no problem admitting that he’s involved in the drug trade, presumably because he knows that there’s nothing Crockett and Tubbs can do to touch him.  Upon meeting the two cops, he immediately tells them exactly how much money they have in their checking accounts.  He points out that they’re poor and they’re fighting a losing war whereas he’s rich and he’s making money off of a losing war.  Beck gives a wonderfully smug performance as Johnston and it should be noted that, of all of the episode’s villains, he’s the only one who is not brought to any sort of justice.  Val almost loses herself.  Tubbs and Crockett don’t even get a thank you for their hard work.  The somewhat sympathetic Jimmy Borges ends up dead while the Revillas were undoubtedly been replaced by even more viscous dealers.  Meanwhile, J.J. Johnston relaxes in his office and counts his money.  This is the No Country For Old Men of Miami Vice episodes.

This episode is also full of familiar faces.  Charles S. Dutton, Kevin Anderson, Anthony Heald, Miguel Pinero, James Russo, Bill Smtirovich, Zoe Tamerlis, Paul Calderon, and Louis Guzman, they all show up in small roles and add to show’s rather surreal atmosphere.  This is Miami Vice at its most dream-like, full of people you think you might know despite the fact that they’re doing things of which you don’t want to be a part.

As for the title, The Prodigal Son is Tubbs and he is tempted to stay in New York City.  But, in the end, he joins Crockett on that flight back to Miami.  It’s his home.