The Count of Monte Cristo (1956 TV series)

The Count of Monte Cristo is a 1956 British cult swashbuckler adventure television series produced by ITC Entertainment/TPA and adapted very loosely from the 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas by Sidney Marshall. It premiered in the UK in early 1956 and ran for 39 thirty-minute episodes dramatizing the continuing adventures of Edmond Dantès, the self-styled Count of Monte Cristo, during the reign of Louis Philippe I d'Orléans, King of the French from 1830 to 1848. The first twelve episodes were filmed in the United States, at the Hal Roach studios, with the rest being filmed at ITC's traditional home of Elstree.^[1]

The Count of Monte Cristo
Created by	Sidney Marshall
Starring	George Dolenz
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of episodes	39
Production
Cinematography	Lionel Banes
Running time	25 minutes
Production companies	ITC Entertainment TPA
Original release
Network	ATV for ITV
Release	20 February (1956-02-20) – 7 December 1956 (1956-12-07)

ITC produced a film based on the same source-material, The Count of Monte-Cristo, in 1975.

Cast

• George Dolenz as the title character
• Fortunio Bonanova
• Robert Cawdron
• Nick Cravat

Guest stars who would go on to later fame included Patrick Troughton, Stratford Johns, Cyril Shaps, Anthony Newlands, John Barrard, Raf De La Torre and Nigel Davenport.

Episodes

1. "A Toy for the Infanta"
2. "Marseilles"
3. "The Luxembourg Affair"
4. "The Texas Affair"
5. "The Mazzini Affair"
6. "The Carbonari"
7. "The Devil's Emissary"
8. "Bordeaux"
9. "Flight to Calais"
10. "Albania"
11. "Naples"
12. "The Art of Terror"
13. "The Experiment"
14. "Mecklenburg"
15. "The Portuguese Affair"
16. "Lichtenburg"
17. "Burgundy"
18. "Majorca"
19. "Sicily"
20. "A Matter of Justice"
21. "Athens"
22. "The Talleyrand Affair"
23. "The Island"
24. "The Barefoot Empress"
25. "The Brothers"
26. "Monaco"
27. "Point, Counter Point"
28. "The Black Death"
29. "Victor Hugo"
30. "Return to the Chateau D'if"
31. "The Pen and the Sword"
32. "The Sardinian Affair"
33. "The Affair of the Three Napoleons"
34. "The Deberry Affair"
35. "The First Train to Paris"
36. "The Golden Blade"
37. "The Duel"
38. "Andorra"
39. "An Affair of Honour"

Home media

A 5-disc DVD set containing all thirty-nine re-mastered and uncut, original episodes was released by Network Distributing Ltd Home Entertainment/Granada Ventures Ltd on 12 April 2010 (currently only in Region 2 PAL format; not yet available in the United States).

References

1. Alan Keeling; Alan Collins; D.W. McGregor (August 2006). "The Count of Monte Cristo". UK Historical TV Adventure series. The Classic TV Archive. Archived from the original on 21 April 2008. Retrieved 22 April 2008.

External links

• The Count of Monte Cristo at IMDb