The film without the cuts. And the book itself.
A young sailor returns to Marseilles with a captaincy, a father, and a bride all within reach — while three jealous men decide he will have none of it.
Edmond Dantès / The Count of Monte Cristo
A wronged sailor returns as a man of wealth, disguises, and terrifying patience.
Marseilles
The city that welcomes Edmond home is where his enemies begin to erase him.
As the Pharaon returns strangely subdued, everyone senses bad news before anyone speaks.
Read →A Ship Under Gloom
The ship drew on and had safely passed the strait, which some volcanic shock has made between the Calasareigne and Jaros islands; had doubled Pomègue, and approached the harbor under topsails, jib, and spanker, but so slowly and sedately that the idlers, with that instinct which is the forerunner of evil, asked one another what misfortune could have happened on board. However, those experienced in navigation saw plainly that if any accident had occurred, it was not to the vessel herself, for she bore down with all the evidence of being skilfully handled, the anchor a-cockbill, the jib-boom guys already eased off, and standing by the side of the pilot, who was steering the _Pharaon_ towards the narrow entrance of the inner port, was a young man, who, with activity and vigilant eye, watched every motion of the ship, and repeated each direction of the pilot.
We meet Edmond Dantès before we know his name, and we meet him doing someone else's job well. This is the first page of the novel: the Pharaon is limping home to Marseilles so mournfully that onlookers sense a disaster, yet the trained eye sees the ship is in perfect order. The gloom, then, is not damage but a death aboard, and the young man shadowing the pilot, catching every command, is already the one holding things together. His reward for that competence will be to be handed everything, then robbed of it.
The Life They Took
A young sailor returns to Marseilles with a captaincy, a father, and a bride all within reach — while three jealous men decide he will have none of it.
The Pharaon
A trading ship comes home carrying one man's promotion and the seed of his ruin.
Mercédès / Countess de Morcerf
The woman who recognizes Edmond beneath the Count before Paris can understand him.
The Count of Monte Cristo
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