***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.
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.