![]() Often, movies add a Hollywood romantic ending to resolve such discrepancies, but this one doesn't even end with the Count in the scene. Unfortunately, in this case, it results in a surprisingly abrupt ending, especially for such a long film. Indeed, most adaptations make significant changes or completely nix these details. The biggest alteration is probably the dropping of the entire subplot involving Villefort's family: his father's Bonapartism, his daughter's romance with Morrel's son, and all of the poisoning stuff. Hence, Napoleon himself makes an appearance even though it undermines claims of innocence in the letter affair by the protagonist, Edmond Dantès, and, as the Count, he receives his own sword fight. As with many movies, it's evidently more an adaptation of stage versions than it is of the book. Even at three hours, this adaptation still required considerable condensing of the mammoth and intricate text. There's also some bleeding whites of the picture. The print has also faded to the point of being noticeably too dark at times-especially evident as there is more early use of low-key lighting here than in some contemporary films. As for the film's print available on the web today, its presentation unfortunately contains a watermark in the upper right corner. This neatly reflects the history of the publication of Dumas's book, which in a common practice of yore, first began printing in serialized form of eighteen parts in a newspaper (and over three years, from 1844 to 1846, as was this film, reportedly, from 1917 to 1919) before it became renowned in the novel form we know today, although, of course, it still contains chapters. ![]() While this "The Count of Monte Cristo" was originally a serial, of 15 episodes according to IMDb trivia, which I suppose would equal out to one chapter per reel of film, it wasn't a serial of the classic cliffhanger variety and so in the print that's available today where the entire series is of one piece with few to no obvious chapter indications, it plays like a normal, albeit long, feature-length film. With the emergence of some classical continuity editing, such that is evident here, the broad gesticulation invented for the distant spectator of the stage was also replaced by subtler movements and expressions. Of course, it helps that I'm familiar with the original text, as well as other cinematic adaptations, but silent films generally rely on an entire system of visual codes that were abandoned when talkies took over. Even with a picture such as this one where there is a normal amount of titling, as opposed to, say, the nearly-wordless "The Last Laugh" (1924), it's far easier for illiterates in whatever language such as me to comprehend the picture. It's also a reminder of how universal the art form was during the silent era. ![]() Although I have no plans to beat this personal near-three-hours record-I already found subtitles for the nearly-four-hours-long 1929 French version of "Monte Cristo" next on my watchlist-I did rather enjoy the experience. Here, by contrast, I viewed the visual narrative presented to me while I imagined what the words meant. In another sense, however, it's the opposite of reading, where one would imagine from the prose a visual picture in the mind's eye. And, it's a good thing I remembered the book since the film is relatively faithful, it was easy enough to follow the plot and characters even if my memories of French and Spanish eluded me. It was an active and quiet endeavor not unlike when I read the novel "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas, from which this film was adapted. This was truly a silent-film experience, too, as no score was provided. At school, I studied at one time or another both French and Spanish, the languages that the title cards in this silent film appear in the available surviving print available online, but that doesn't mean I retained much of any of it. This was an interesting experience, as this was the longest film, at nearly three hours, I've yet seen without subtitles in my native language.
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