Making Prime Work Part V

NOTE: This is the start of a very intermittent series on this blog, wherein I review anything I may have watched, read, or otherwise gained from our Amazon Prime membership. This is partly to continue justifying the cost of Amazon Prime as it takes yet another leap, and to remind me what a wonderful cornucopia of media there is out there that I have yet to witness, or re-witness as the case may be.

Part One: Revenge. REVENGE! (Shhh!)



I remember, vaguely, reading The Count of Monte Cristo in late junior high or early high school. I rather enjoyed the story (the Abbe Faria part, not necessarily the revenge part).

I also remember watching the Richard Chamberlain 1975 version of “The Count of Monte Cristo” as a classroom reward after we finished reading the book. I remember it as my introduction to the Hollywood tradition of monkeying with storylines.

Caderousse isn’t a tailor, but a sailor who crosses Edmond Dantes as a thief.

And I guess that’s about it, aside from a lot of characters and situations who are just left out of the story.

They tightened the story. Which was a good thing. As the story really needed tightening. (I tried to read the original, unexpurgated version. In French. It needed some tightening.)

Rewatching it now is an education. Partly an education on bad acting – de Villefort and his pretend fisticuffing-turned-buffonery in court stands out. And then there’s Donald Pleasance. Always a delight. And clearly when I watched this the first time, I had no idea who Tony Curtis is.

Then there’s Richard Chamberlain counting down his successful revenges. Corny.

Also, he shoots at modern playing cards in the run-up to the duel with Albert Mondego. And they had a sword fight ON THE TABLE. How awesome is that? Old school. But awesome.

The story of the futility of revenge still shines through.

Because he gets his revenge. He counts down his One. Two. Three. Four. And Mercedes leaves. For Marseilles, home of her misery. Where he loses Mercedes – the Countess Mondego – all over again. Sniff.

Part Two: An Historian Writing a Made-Up History

I approached the documentary “The Real Middle Earth” with a bit of trepidation, particularly after reading a bunch of one-star reviews of it at Amazon. However, the documentary is better than what these reviewers claim.

Part of the documentary’s charm – and its shame – is that typical British “HEY THIS IS A FANTASY” treatment of the material: Spoopy creeping clouds, the whiz-bang of the special effects meant to offset the clunky practical effects, spring-sproing music (marimbas, xylophones, glockenspiel, etc.) just like what you see and hear typically in treatments of Terry Pratchett’s stories*, viz:



Of course, there’s a lot of speculation when it comes to real places inspiring places in The Lord of the Rings, and of the effects Tolkien’s experiences during World War I had on the novels. But it’s hard to imagine these places and experiences not having an influence.

If I can criticize something, it’s the continued re-use of the same images during the World War I segment of the documentary. Surely there were many more pictures to draw from than the less than half dozen the use over and over. Also, about half the documentary is spent wandering about the geographic possibilities of The Shire, kinda leaving the majority of Middle Earth out.

*I’m not saying this kind of treatment is bad, per se – compared to the schlock American cinema produces (which tends to focus on grit, gore, and the banality of good v. evil). I am saying it’s clearly British.