The reason Hollywood continues to remake their past successes is pretty obvious - it's hard to come up with a really good story that audiences want to see retold again and again. Unfortunately, the true art of storytelling died out in the early part of the 20th century which explains why certain tales are recycled every few years. The current case in point is The Count of Monte Cristo, directed by Kevin Reynolds and starring Jim Caviezel, Guy Pierce and Richard Harris. Based on a novel by Alexander Dumas which was written between the years of 1844 and 1846, The Count of Monte Cristo has been adapted for the screen countless times. In fact, it has spawned so many versions that it would take a specialist in Alexander Dumas film adaptations to determine which is the best as well as the most faithful to the novel. One thing is certain, though. The new version starring Jim Caviezel as Edmond Dantes, the title character, is a box office hit. And that's rather refreshing news considering the current state of the action film. How many cop thrillers, terrorist-inspired melodramas and sci-fi combat movies can you take? Kevin Reynold's version of The Count of Monte Cristo is a lavishly produced, old-fashioned costume drama complete with entertaining performances (particularly by Guy Pierce as the villainous Mondego and Richard Harris as the Abbe Faria), exciting action sequences and stunning European locations. But it's the revenge-driven story that captivates audiences. Dumas based his story on fact; in 1809, a man named Francois Picaud was falsely imprisoned on charges that he was a spy. When he was released years later, he mysteriously acquired a fortune and assumed a disguise which enabled him to kill the people who had conspired against him.
Allegedly the first film version of The Count of Monte Cristo is the 1908 version which starred Francis Boggs as Dantes. In 1913 Edwin S. Porter made a version with 66-year-old stage actor James O'Neill in the title role (he played it on the stage). Probably the most popular version (until now) was the 1934 screen adaptation starring Robert Donat as Dantes and Sidney Blackmer as Mondego. It was directed by Rowland V. Lee and is extremely hard to see today. DVD release anyone? Along the way there were unoriginal ripoffs - Louis Hayward as The Son of Monte Cristo (1940) and Ice skating champion Sonja Henie appeared in a comedic spoof called The Countess of Monte Cristo (1948). There were also two French versions of the Dumas novel - one in 1954 starring Jean Marais and one in 1961 with Louis Jourdan. But most American audiences are probably more familiar with the made-for-TV version in 1975 with Richard Chamberlain as Dantes, Tony Curtis as Mondego and Louis Jourdan (this time in the role of De Villefort, the prosecutor. And recently Gerald Depardieu appeared in a mini-series made for television. But the recent film version of The Count of Monte Cristo might be the one to stand the test of time thanks to its epic scope, superb art direction and the way it skillfully updates a 19th century story for contemporary audiences. For more information about The Count of Monte Cristo, visit the Official Web Site.
THE MANY FACES OF JACK THE RIPPER
The recent success of From Hell, the film adaptation of Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell's excellent graphic novel, probably shouldn't have come as a real surprise. Jack the Ripper has fascinated people for well over a century, inspiring a small library of books ranging from the silliest conspiracy text to Iain Sinclair's hallucinatory novels. Inevitably there would be movies featuring the Ripper. He eventually became something of a generic boogeyman, popping up as a minor character in films like Waxwork II: Lost in Time (1992) but there are other films that focus mainly on him.
The first movie with Jack the Ripper appears to have been the 1929 Pandora's Box starring Louise Brooks as a free-spirted woman who may or may not be a prostitute. This was based on the work of the controversial Franz Wedekind, one of Germany's leading playwrights at the turn of the century. His story has been filmed at least seven times, including a 1980 version by Walerian Borowczyk (Immoral Tales). The 1929 version is actually based on two plays, Pandora's Box and Earth-Spirit, the convoluted history of which need not detain us here (except to note that this was also the source of Alban Berg's opera Lulu).
Oddly enough, considering the public interest and dramatic potential, Ripper films have tended to not focus on the actual case. Exceptions are a couple of TV movies, one in 1988 named Jack the Ripper (starring Michael Caine) and one in 1997 entitled The Ripper (starring Gabrielle Anwar) though some might mention the 1959 Jack the Ripper that imagines an American detective heading to London to track down the killer. More commonly though Ripper films attempt some twist to the story, often to the point that they have no relation to the real Jack the Ripper case. An obvious example is the idea of pitting the Ripper against his fictional contemporary Sherlock Holmes. A few novels had used the idea but the first film was A Study in Terror (1965) based on an Ellery Queen novel. More notable perhaps is Murder by Decree (1979) which pits Sherlock Holmes (Christopher Plummer) against a Ripper protected by a vast conspiracy. It was directed by Bob Clark of A Christmas Story (and Porky's fame.
Other cross-breeds with familiar characters occur as well. One of the better examples is Time After Time (1979), directed and co-written by Nicholas Meyer (who had written best-selling novels where Holmes meets Freud and Bernard Shaw). Here, Jack (David Warner) escapes to the 1970s using a time machine and it's up to H.G. Wells (Malcolm McDowell) to follow and capture him. Only Wells didn't plan on falling in love with a bank clerk (Mary Steenburgen), possibly because in his day such clerks were all men. Another example is Edge of Sanity (1989) which adapts the Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde story (with the lead played by Anthony Perkins) so that Mr. Hyde is actually Jack Hyde, aka Jack the Ripper. The Ruling Class (1972) starring Peter O'Toole as an unbalanced English lord features a subplot in which he imagines he IS the Ripper, going so far to even murder a woman on his estate.
Other Ripper films present a later series of murders that follow the earlier pattern. In films like the 1976 Jack the Ripper from prolific cult director Jess Franco (and recently released on DVD), the murderer (Klaus Kinski) is a modern serial killer mimicking the Ripper. A similar idea occurs in Jack the Mangler (1971, aka Jack the Ripper and originally Jack el destripador de Londres) where Spanish cult actor Paul Naschy plays a lunatic re-enacting the Ripper murders. Hands of the Ripper (1971), a Hammer production, features Jack the Ripper's daughter who has grown up to be a very unstabile adult.
Some films go even futher. Take Bridge Across Time (1985), a TV movie that shows the London Bridge being relocated to Arizona where suddenly mysterious murders happen and it's up to policeman David Hasselhoff to save us all. And during the busy days of blaxploitation there was an announcement for Black the Ripper but this appears to have never actually been made. Certainly there are more Ripper films waiting discovery....
By Lang Thompson
