The Son of Monte Cristo (1940)

The Son of Monte Cristo is a 1940 second-tier swashbuckler. You take some ideas borrowed from The Count of Monte Cristo, The Mark of Zorro, The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Prisoner of Zenda and combine them in a blender and this is what you get. It’s all good clean fun.

The setting is the tiny Balkan principality of Lichtenburg in 1865 (very much like the mythical Ruritania of The Prisoner of Zenda). Lichtenburg is ruled by the young and beautiful, and much-loved, Grand Duchess Zona (Joan Bennett) but the real power is in the hands of the unscrupulous and brutal General Gurko Lanen (George Sanders). The Grand Duchess’s loyal prime minister sends her on a desperate mission to Paris to seek aid from the Emperor Napoleon III (a sensible idea since Napoleon III was much addicted to getting France involved in crazy foreign adventures). Unfortunately Gurko Lanen gets wind of the mission and is determined to prevent Zona from reaching Paris.

Just when Zona is desperately in need of a swashbuckling hero to rescue her, lo and behold, such a hero appears on the scene. He is Edmund Dantes, the Count of Monte Cristo (not the famous one but apparently his son). The Count (played by Louis Hayward) is the kind of guy who spends most of his life just waiting for the opportunity to save damsels in distress and of course he is a great hater of tyrants.

Sadly he has, initially, mixed success in his rescue attempts and Zona ends up back in the clutches of Gurko Lanen. And she discovers, to her horror, that he has plans to force her into marrying him. She is horrified. It’s bad enough that he’s a ruthless tyrant, but he’s also a commoner. In fact, a former peasant.

Naturally Dantes gets mixed up in the resistance movement. Their objective is to free the Grand Duchess from Gurko Lanen’s influence but first they will have to free the imprisoned prime minister. Someone will have to get into the palace. Dantes feels he can easily do this since he happens to be a very rich banker with whom Gurko Lanen has been trying to negotiate a loan (yes, this movie does rely rather a lot on lucky coincidences). If he plays the fool as well no-one will suspect what he is up to.

The plot has some pleasing twists and there are times when you really think that the hero can’t possibly get out of the mess he’s landed himself in.

Of course any 1940 Hollywood movie dealing with tyrannies would have been made with a strong political subtext. Fortunately in this case the point isn’t laboured too much and can be safely ignored and the viewer can just get on with enjoying the movie.

Director Rowland V. Lee had a particular talent for making swashbuckling adventure films and it’s no surprise that he handles this directing assignment extremely well. Screenwriter George Bruce also did plenty of movies in this genre. Even if this one is just ideas from other swashbucklers cobbled together the ideas are at least cobbled together reasonably coherently and entertainingly.

Louis Hayward makes a fine dashing hero and Joan Bennett is a perfectly acceptable and suitably haughty heroine. It goes without saying that the movie really belongs to George Sanders. He gives a splendid larger-than-life performance and he has the advantage of having by far the most interesting rôle in the film. Gurko Lanen is just a little bit more than a cardboard villain. As a peasant who has clawed his way to the top he has a convincing motivation for seeking power. And he is genuinely in love with Zona, and he does have reasonable grounds for thinking that her rejection of him has a lot to do with his humble birth. Even if it’s hard to actually sympathise with him we can at least understand what drives him.

The Cheezy Flicks DVD release offers a less than pristine but reasonably acceptable transfer and it is cheap.

This movie looks good (it was filmed in black-and-white) and it has some decent action scenes (and plenty of them), and of course some romance. As long as you don’t set your expectations too high The Son of Monte Cristo is a thoroughly enjoyable adventure romp and the performance of George Sanders on its own is enough reason to see this one. Swashbuckling fans should be quite satisfied. Recommended.

You might also be interested in my reviews of some of the movies that pretty obviously influenced this one, such as The Scarlet Pimpernel and The Prisoner of Zenda.

Highway Dragnet (1954)

Highway Dragnet is a 1954 low-budget crime thriller with film noir overtones, released by Allied Artists. Roger Corman was both a co-producer and co-writer on the project. Nathan Juran directed.

Jim Henry (Richard Conte) is an ex-Marine sergeant just demobilised after the Korean War. He’s headed for Vegas. He meets a blonde in a bar. There’s some mild flirtation but she’s seriously drunk and they have a very minor altercation. No big deal. Except that the blonde winds up dead and the cops arrest Henry. There’s some circumstantial evidence against him but luckily he has an alibi. He was at the Sunset Hotel with a buddy, an ex-Army captain. Except it isn’t lucky after all. The buddy is on some hush-hush government security job and was staying at the hotel under a different name, and Jim Henry doesn’t know what name the buddy was using. So when the cops check his alibi it looks like he hasn’t got one. Which makes the cops think Henry must be guilty. And they don’t seem interested in hearing his side of the story.

Of course we don’t actually know what transpired after the meeting in the bar so we can’t entirely discount the possibility that Jim is guilty.

Jim Henry figures he’s in pretty big trouble so when he sees a chance of escape he takes it.

Now you might think that’s a bit of a sucker move but look at it from Henry’s point of view.  He’s just minding his own business when suddenly out of nowhere he’s picked up on a murder charge, the circumstantial evidence is of a type that could be made to sound fairly damning and it looks like he’s tried to give a phoney alibi. And the cops give the very strong impression that they don’t much care if he’s innocent or not, they’re going to pin the murder on him anyway. Maybe that’s an unfair view of the cops but Jim doesn’t have the luxury of having time to think about what he should do.

He steals a police car but has to ditch that quickly and then he has some luck. Photographer Mrs Cummings (Joan Bennett) and her young model Susan (Wanda Hendrix) have broken down. Henry gets their car started so they give him a ride.

Of course there’s a huge manhunt in progress and Jim has two women in tow who aren’t exactly thrilled by the situation when they find out they’re sharing a car with a murder suspect. The odds are stacked against Jim but he’s resourceful and determined and he’s desperate and he proves surprisingly difficult to catch. In fact almost impossible to catch as he evades one trap after another.

The odds are heavily stacked against Jim but he does one chance and that’s what he’s relying on. He just needs to buy some time. 

The weakness of the plot is that it relies on one very big coincidence but aside from that the script is solid. While there’s plenty of interest in Jim’s attempts to stay one step ahead of the law there’s even more interest in the uneasy three-way relationship between Jim and the two women. Mrs Cummings figures he’s guilty. Susan isn’t so sure, but that may be because she thinks Jim is kinda cute and kinda nice and could a guy who’s cute and nice really be a murderer?

The very strong performances by the three leads are a major asset. Richard Conte could play heroes or villains, winners or losers, and could make them seem human. Jim Henry at times seems to fit into all four categories. He’s basically a decent guy but he’s a cornered animal determined to survive at all costs and that makes him ruthless and dangerous. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone but he has no intention of being captured. It’s the sort of complex nuanced performance that Conte always seemed to be able to produce. 

Joan Bennett as Mrs Cummings isn’t overly sympathetic but she’s a woman with valid reasons to be prickly and difficult. 

Wanda Hendrix manages to make Susan seem a bit more than just a naïve young woman. Susan is genuinely confused about her loyalties and rally doesn’t know which way to jump. The movie also doesn’t disguise the fact that Susan’s initial attraction to Jim is very much sexual. It’s a fine performance.  

Nathan Juran was a competent journeyman director and does a fine job here, skilfully maintaining the tension levels.

Jim Henry’s flight from Nevada to California takes him into the desert and the desert setting is used effectively. The location shooting is terrific and and I loved the slightly offbeat climax on the Salton Sea.

Reel Vault’s DVD release offers an acceptable anamorphic transfer (slightly surprisingly for a 1954 B-feature the film was shot in widescreen black-and-white).

Is this film noir? I‘d say only marginally. Jim Henry has some character flaws (he’s impulsive and suspicious of authority figures) but they’re not enough to qualify him as a true noir protagonist and neither of the women could be said to be a classic femme fatale. The police are not corrupt, just a bit over-zealous. 

Highway Dragnet is an entertaining unpretentious B-picture. You can criticise the plot for being just a tad contrived but the movie moves along so quickly and entertainingly that a few minor weaknesses can be overlooked.

The acting performances are what earns it a highly recommended rating.

Scarlet Street (1945)

Although Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street has long been recognised as one of the key movies in the American film noir cycle it had the misfortune for many years to be seen only in very poor quality DVD releases. That problem has now been largely solved by Kino’s Blu-Ray release. It is now possible to see the film as it should be seen and to judge it accordingly.

Scarlet Street had an interesting history. It’s a remake of a 1931 Jean Renoir film which retains most of the plot elements of the earlier film but with some very important changes in both tone and in the nature of the relationship between the characters.

Scarlet Street is in some ways a logical follow-up to Lang’s 1944 hit The Woman in the Window. That movie also starred Edward G. Robinson, Joan Bennett and Dan Duryea and had relaunched Bennett’s career after a hiatus due to motherhood. The success of The Woman in the Window had convinced Joan Bennett that her best hope for maintaining her career as a major star was to continue working with Lang. She felt that Lang was the director who could get the best performances out of her, and that was an entirely accurate judgment on her part. She persuaded her husband, producer Walter Wanger, that it would be an extremely good idea to join Lang in setting up an independent production company. The company would have three huge assets - Bennett’s star quality, Lang’s reputation as a director and Wanger’s established relationship with Universal which would take care of the distribution angle. Diana Productions would have a brief and turbulent history.

While Diana Productions eventually met an unhappy fate in the short term Scarlet Street fulfilled the high expectations everyone involved had for it. It was well received by the critics and it was a box-office hit.

The story comprises two intersecting romantic triangles, although perhaps romantic is the wrong word for such spectacularly perverse relationships.

Chris Cross (Edward G. Robinson) is a meek cashier whose one genuine satisfaction in life is his painting. He was unwise enough to allow loneliness to tempt him into a disastrous marriage with the shrewish Adele (Rosalind Ivan). He is the sort of man who just lets life happen to him, rather like a train wreck. His attempts to take control of his own destiny will lead him to make some disastrous mistakes that will make his life a whole lot worse. Taking control is a good idea but it helps if you have some judgment. While some people see Lang’s characters as victims of fate Chris is entirely a victim of his own poor decisions and lack of judgment. Wishful thinking is not a good plan. It’s an especially bad plan when you’re dealing with someone like Kitty March (Joan Bennett).

Chris’s paintings are very much in the style of naïve art. He has had no art training and has never mastered the technique of perspective (just as he has never mastered the technique of perspective in his own life). One of the reasons this movie works so well is that his paintings (which were done for the movie by an artist friend of Lang’s) are so very convincing. They really do look like the work of an untrained amateur, they really do look like the paintings that a man like Chris would paint, and they really do look like the kinds of paintings that trendy art critics would hail as the product of an untrained genius.

Dudley Nichols had written the screenplay for Lang’s 1941 hit Man Hunt and was anxious to work with him again. Nichols provided Lang with exactly what he needed for Scarlet Street, a strong script which allowed free rein for Lang’s visual imagination.

Lang would adapt fairly well to the changing tastes and the demands for more location shooting in the 50s but he was really at his best shooting in a studio where he could have absolute control. In this case everything comes together perfectly - Alexander Golitzen’s art direction, the sets, the costumes, the acting, Lang’s visual brilliance, all complement one another. Kitty’s studio apartment makes a perfect contrast with the sordidness of Chris’s apartment.

Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett had already proved themselves to be a very successful and dynamic pairing in The Woman in the Window. They’re even better in Scarlet Street. As terrific as Robinson is he is perhaps overshadowed by Bennett’s extraordinary (and career-best) performance. Dan Duryea does what Dan Duryea always does, and does it with style.

Kino’s Blu-Ray is the best this movie has ever looked. A company with greater resources might have provided a better transfer but this one is a huge improvement over the generally horrible previous DVD releases. On his stimulating an informative audio commentary David Kalat does make a very good point about the ending, a point Lotte Eisner made in her excellent book on the director. Chris’s fate has more to do with the fact that he has failed to win Kitty from Johnny, rather than with actual guilt for his (Chris’s) crimes.

Be warned though - his audio commentary includes major spoilers for three other Lang movies - The Woman in the Window, Fury and Beyond a Reasonable Doubt. If you haven’t  yet seen those movies you might want to think about skipping the commentary from around to the 65-minute mark to around the 80-minute mark. The spoilers are absolutely crucial and will pretty much wreck your enjoyment of those three movies. I understand that he could not make certain important points in his arguments without revealing those spoilers but it’s still something to bear in mind.

Scarlet Street is not only the best of Lang’s American films, it’s the best film of his career. Yes, even better than M. Very highly recommended.

Man Hunt (1941)

Man Hunt was released by 20th Century-Fox in 1941 and it’s one of Fritz Lang’s finest American movies.

Based on Geoffrey Household’s excellent 1939 novel Rogue Male it’s the story of an English big-game hunter who decides to stalk the most dangerous game of all. Not just a man, but a heavily-guarded European dictator. In the book the dictator is never named although it’s obvious that it’s Hitler, a point the movie makes explicit.

Captain Alan Thorndike (played by Walter Pidgeon, although the character is never named in the book) believes he is just making a “sporting stalk” - that he has no intention of actually killing the dictator. He has grown tired of killing and even when he stalks animals he no longer kills them. The thrill of the chase is enough. Once he has the animal in his sights the result is, as he says, a mathematical certainty and there is no need to pull the trigger. But in the case of Hitler is he really deluding himself?



He is captured by the Nazis and tortured, at the orders of the smooth but brutal Major Quive-Smith (George Sanders). The Germans want him to sign a confession that he was acting under the orders of the British government. He refuses, and they arrange an “accident” for him. But the following day they discover that he has survived. Now the big-game hunter becomes the hunted.

He escapes from Germany, with some help from a cheerful cabin boy (Roddy McDowall in his first major film role) on a Danish freighter. He thinks his problems are over when he gets back to England but in fact they’re just begun. The Nazis are still hunting him and have despatched an assassin (John Carradine) to deal with him. He finds another unlikely ally in the person of a young Cockney streetwalker named Jerry (Joan Bennett in her breakthrough role). The odds seem stacked against him but his hunting skills give him a chance for survival.



What follows is a tense and thrilling chase, initially through London until he finally goes to ground in a cave in the English countryside where he will have his final confrontation with Major Quive-Smith.

The novel is essentially a series of internal monologues with the hero’s only emotional bond being with a feral cat who befriends him. This makes great reading but it’s hopelessly un-cinematic so screenwriter Dudley Nichols major changes had to make major changes to the story. Most importantly the hero has to have other characters (both enemies and allies) to whom he can express his thoughts. So the character of Major Quive-Smith is beefed up and fleshed out and the Cockney prostitute more or less takes the place of the cat (and both her fate and the hero’s reaction to it remain essentially the same). Despite the significant changes to the story the spirit of the novel is retained quite effectively.



Jerry is also needed in order to provide at least some vaguely romantic interest and to provide the story with at least one important female character. There were major problems with the Production Code Authority over Jerry’s means of earning a living, but it’s still perfectly obvious that she’s a prostitute.

Lang had a reputation for being very controlling with actors but Joan Bennett had enough intelligence to realise she needed strong direction and she would go on to work with Lang on three subsequent movies and she and Lang got on remarkably well.



George Sanders makes the most of his role and he is perfectly cast. Walter Pidgeon is also very effective and this is one of his best performances. John Carradine is delightfully villainous.

The subject matter might not be very noir but the visual treatment certainly is. Lang and his cinematographer Arthur C. Miller have really excelled themselves. This is a dark moody film filled with threatening shadows. Some superb art direction also helps and the result is a movie replete with arresting images. Lang makes the most of some fine sets including a subway in which one of the movie’s pivotal scenes occurs.



Lang’s American movies have been both well-served and badly-served on DVD. Most are at least available, which is the good news, but the bad news is that few have been given the treatment they deserve. But in this case Fox have done a terrific job - a great transfer, a commentary track and a documentary.

Man Hunt was one of a series of spy movies Land made between 1941 and 1946, all with a strong anti-Nazi message. Lang was always fascinated by spies and Man Hunt is one of his best American films. Highly recommended.