The Count of Monte Cristo

***BEING RELEASED ON DVD 26 MAY 2014 - AMAZON***

This adaptation is simply wonderful.

It follows the text very faithfully, and reproduces the marvelous tale almost as exactly as Dumas wrote it. No other production of 'The Count of MonteCristo' achieved this, before or since. In these more enlightened times, when Classics are re-created, characters are added, some removed, the time line re-arranged, and of course the dialog 'improved', it is perhaps old fashioned to so accurately translate a book to the screen, however this production recreates closely the book's magnificent tale of adventure, love, misery, charm and revenge.

The BBC filmed the Series two years before it announced it was going to start transmitting in colour, so it was a B&W production. This was not a deliberate decision, just an accident of time. Each episode would have been awash with spectacular colour.

To fit the whole of the book into 5 hours would have been impossible, so some changes were made, but not many. This production is the closest adaptation made to date, much closer than later attempts.

I hope that somewhere in the vaults of the BBC a recording exists so that those of you who never saw this production some day have the chance to do so. Once seen, I guarantee when you re-read the book, you will always see and hear the characters as they were portrayed in this TV masterpiece. The story, the sets, the direction, the costumes, and each and every actor's performance are superb. Very, very occasionally everything comes together, and in this production it really does. Each and every person who had a hand in making this series has my sincere respect, and admiration. You created a classic from a Classic, very few have come close to achieving that.

Originally IMDb only showed Alan Badel in the cast list. After a lot of research I managed to put together and almost complete cast list which I submitted to IMDb and which was eventually included. For some reason some of the cast were still omitted. There is an 'open' Facebook group entitled 'Alan Badel Is The Count of Monte Cristo' which contains the complete cast list and other interesting material.

If anyone out there reads this and has 'influence' with the BBC, use it to bring this production back into the public domain.

I have been trying to get a copy of this wonderful series, after following it on the Beeb many years ago, but without success. I sympathize with the person who said that they had missed some of the episodes. This version was so true to the book and its complicated plot that it would have been difficult to follow unless one watched it in its entirety. Having seen serialized versions and movies, even the French one with Gerard Depardieu, I feel that none of them compare with this old BBC version. Many of them are not true to the original story, and certainly none of the actors have the charisma of Alan Badel. He had an amazing voice and a magnetism that was so perfectly suited to the role of Edmund Dantes.

This is a very affectionate adaptation of the novel, extremely faithful to the spirit and the detail of the book. It was a high-spot in TV adaptation of the Classics, beautiful to look at, and splendidly acted. Alan Badel's performance as Edmond Dantes was really memorable.

I couldn't agree more with Fudge-4's comments. I watched this BBC Sunday teatime serialisation of The Count of Monte Cristo back in my childhood and was completely enthralled. The casting was perfect and when I later read the book and listened to a BBC radio version I always pictured the actors from the TV version.

I can still recall the striking theme music which opened each eagerly awaited episode. Alan Badel as the count was a commanding presence, even when viewed on the small black and white TV screens of that era, and I also recall the presence of the late Sandor Eles (not mentioned in the cast list above), playing the wonderfully handsome son of the count's principal enemy, Mondego.

Let's hope that this superb dramatisation was not wiped when the BBC culled its videotape archive.

There aren't enough superlatives to express my thoughts of this sixties' serialisation of Dumas' classic novel. It is one of my vivid memories of my teenage years having been one of BBC TV's superb Sunday teatime serials which were a staple television diet at that time - along with the "Dr Who" serials on a Saturday. With the superb Alan Badel as the ultimate 'Count', subsequent portrayals have been pale in comparison - even Gerard Depardieu in the recent French language adaptation. My only wish is that someone, somewhere, would seek out this production and give it a well-deserved rerun - all thirteen half-hour episodes, which omitted little from the novel. A truly superb and memorable production. 'They don't make 'em like this anymore' ;-((