The Count of Monte Cristo

It's without frills. It's black and white. It's on TV. Set mostly on a stage. You know the story by heart. You know what each character must say and do. And yet... I could not tear myself away. The extra time allows for so much more dialog, so much more verbal sparring. So much more innuendo. The acting is superb. I'm sure there are faults. But the series was so skillfully written and acted, that I could not focus on the faults, nor remember any, if there were.

We watched this adaptation on BBC Television when the serial version was shown in 1964. It was our first contact with both Alan Badel and The Count Of Monte Cristo. The impact of both the story and the adaptation was spellbinding. I can still hear Dantes saying "Hi-eee-day". There has never been another adaptation to match it. I have since read the book several times and, irrespective of whoever may have appeared in subsequent versions, my vision of Dantes is always Alan Badel. Why is the BBC serial version not available? The world at large deserves to be able to see this treasure. The fact that it was transmitted in Black and White is no bar to its worldwide acceptability. Even if large parts have been destroyed, whatever remains will be acceptable to the viewing public. Please! Please! Anyone who knows where it is, do come forward. It is one of the media world's great treasures.

I have just started re-reading 'The Count of Monte Cristo for the first time for more than 30 years, and find, as I read, sharp reminders of the wonderful BBC Sunday Serial from 1964. In fact, Alan Badel's charismatic performance as the Count still remains my foremost image of the character. As I recall, even as a child, performance values were excellent, with fine period detail, dialogue which didn't sound like a novelette, a real ability to tell the story and wonderful performances from some great actors. I found the IMDb site by searching the Internet for a possible copy of the serial, and reiterate with other contributors, that if anyone can trace such a copy, it should be made available to a new audience. In passing, the BBC serialisation of 'The Three Musketeers', from roughly the same time, also had a similar blend of fine acting, period detail and story telling, with Jeremy Brett the ultimate D'Artagnan. Another classic that would be well worth re-issuing.

***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've trawled the internet looking for this, with no success. Elsewhere, it has been said that the BBC has all of the episodes in its archives. The problem of making these available to the public is, presumably, one of finance. In 2003, Greg Dykes, BBC Director General, said at the Edinburgh International TV Festival :

"For many years we have had an obligation to make our archive available to the public, it was even in the terms of the last charter. But what have we done about it?

Well,you all know the problem.

Up until now, this huge resource has remained locked up, inaccessible to the public because there hasn't been an effective mechanism for distribution.

But the digital revolution and broadband are changing all that. For the first time, there is an easy and affordable way of making this treasure trove of BBC content available to all.We intend to allow parts of our programmes, where we own the rights, to be available to anyone in the UK to download so long as they don't use them for commercial purposes.

Under a simple licensing system, we will allow users to adapt BBC content for their own use.

We are calling this the BBC Creative Archive.

When complete, the BBC will have taken a massive step forward in opening our content to all - be they young or old, rich or poor."

How far this has advanced, I don't know. Whether the Count of Monte Cristo would be high up the list of programmes to be digitised, who knows? We, here, all obviously agree on its merits!

November 2008 and nothing has changed; I wonder whether we will ever see this fantastic series ever again. I can still hear Alan Badel's voice in my head: this was what made it special for me. I had a small portable tape recorder at the time, 15 minutes per side, and I listened to the tapes over and over again. I still keep hoping.

March 2009 If Midnight_Voice is prepared to start a FaceBook campaign, I'm all for it!