Tag: cell

The Count of Monte Cristo
(Le Comte de Monte-Cristo)
(2024)

Post author By Jeremy Clarke
Post date 28 August 2024
No Comments on The Count of Monte Cristo
(Le Comte de Monte-Cristo)
(2024)
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Directors – Alexandre de La Patellière, Matthieu Delaporte – 2024 – France – Cert. 12a – 173m

*****

An innocent Frenchman framed and imprisoned as a Napoleonic partisan escapes to impose justice on his false accusers – new Dumas adaptation is out in UK cinemas on Friday, August 30th

There have been numerous adaptions of The Count of Monte Cristo for the screen, not to mention radio and other media, over the years; this latest one is directed by the screenwriters of The Three Musketeers: D’Artagnan and The Three Musketeers: Milady (both Martin Bourboulon, 2023), who clearly have a strong feel for Alexandre Dumas’ works.

Much of what’s here is familiar: shortly after the fall of Napoleon, on the day of his wedding to sweetheart Mercédès (Anaïs Demoustier from The New Girlfriend, François Ozon, 2014), ship’s crew member Edmond Dantès (Pierre Niney from Frantz, François Ozon, 2016) is arrested for Bonapartism, falsely accused by another crew member Danglars (Patrick Mille from the two 2023 Three Musketeers movies and Love Crime, Alain Corneau, 2010). Neither the crown prosecutor Villefort (Laurent Lafitte) nor Dantès’ friend Fernand de Morcef (Bastien Bouillon from Jumbo, Zoé Wittock, 2020) refute these allegations, although both know them to be untrue, since both have their own reasons for doing so: the prosecutor because Dantès could unwittingly ruin him, Fernand because he too is in love with and wishes to marry Mercédès.… Read the rest

Tags adaption, Adèle Simphal, Alexandre de La Patellière, Alexandre Dumas, Anaïs Demoustier, Anamaria Vartolomei, arrest, bastard son, Bastien Bouillon, body in the water, Bonapartism, burial alive, burial at birth, cell, Chateau d’If, coward, crown prosecutor, disguise, drowning, dungeon, escape, France, grief, incarceration, intrigue, jealousy, Julie De Bona, justice, Laurent Lafitte, Marseilles, Matthieu Delaporte, mistress, novel, partisan, Patrick Mille, Pierfrancesco Favino, Pierre Niney, post-Napoleonic. Napoleon, prison cell, prisoner, prosecutor, prostitution, put things right, recognise, remorse, rescue, revenge, rival in love, ruin, ship in distress, ship on fire, ship’s crew member, skulduggery, Stéphane Varupenne, storm at sea, The Count of Monte Cristo, the fall of Napoleon, treasure, tunnel, unsuspecting, Vassili Schneider, vengeance, Vivant, ward, wedding day, younger generation

Features Live Action Movies

The Weak and the Wicked

Director – J. Lee Thompson – 1954 – UK – Cert. 12 – 88m

***1/2

A woman spends 12 months in prison after being convicted of fraud – one of two J. Lee Thompson movies out on UK Blu-ray, DVD and Digital in August, 2024

Jean (Glynis Johns) is marched from her cell and up the stairs into the courtroom to hear the judge’s verdict. She gets 12 months for fraud, and is sent to HM Prison Blackdown. Her crime is detailed in flashback – she has a gambling problem, which costs her her doctor boyfriend Michael Hale (John Gregson) who walks out on her. She pays for chips at a casino with a cheque, for which she hadn’t the funds in the bank. In this office, the owner Mr. Seymour (Edwin Styles) tells her he has his own way of dealing with debts, as she’ll shortly find out.

Her friend Pam (Ursula Howells) gets her a job in a clothing store, but it turns out Pam is actually working for Mr. Seymour and steals a family heirloom from Jean’s handbag the first chance she gets. Jean claims the insurance money only for two policemen to arrest her the day the money comes through, going into her home and finding a pawn ticket for the allegedly stolen item tucked into the back of a mirror.… Read the rest

Tags 12 months, 1950s, A.E. Matthews, abandon, abscond, allegation, arrest, Athene Seyler, bank, bars, boyfriend, casino, cell, cheque, clothing store, convict, cot death, courtroom, crime, dancing, debts, department store, Diana Dors, doctor, drinking, Edwin Styles, experimental open prison, flashback, fraud, funds, gambling, gentleman’s clothes store, Glynis Johns, HM Prison, incarceration, infirm husband, inmate, insurance, insurance money, J. Lee Thompson, Jane Hylton, job offer, John Gregson, judge, letters, misdemeanour, model prisoner, money, obsessed with men, Olive Sloane, out on the town, pawn ticket, police, policemen, pregnant, premature birth, prison, prisoners, professional, punishment, Rachel Roberts, radio, rehabilitation, Rhodesia, scissors, sentence, shoplifter, Sidney James, stolen, Sybil Thorndike, tailed jacket, theft, trust, UK, Ursula Howells, verdict, waistcoat, warder, weed killer, window display, women in prison

Features Live Action Movies

Shorta
(US: Enforcement)

Directors – Anders Ølholm, Frederik Louis Hviid – 2020 – Denmark – Cert. 15 – 108m

****

As racial tensions simmer, two white cops become trapped on a vast, no-go housing estate – out in cinemas and on digital from Friday, September 3rd

‘Shorta’ is Arabic slang for ‘police’. An Arab suspect is interrogated and beaten in a Danish police cell, resulting in his hospitalisation. The story is all over the TV news. With tensions running high, and set to run even higher should the questioned man die as seems highly likely, the police are instructed not to enter the area of Svalegarden, a vast housing estate where many Arabs live.

With two officers under investigation for the treatment of the suspect, Jens Høyer (Simon Sears) is partnered with their trigger-happy buddy Mike Andersen (Jacob Hauberg Lohmann) with instructions from the captain to keep Mike on a leash during these difficult circumstances. In the course of their eight-hour shift, they pursue a car with Arab occupants which leads them into the forbidden Svalegarden estate, where after hassling the car’s occupants and getting nowhere, Mike pulls over a teenage boy Amos (Tarak Zayat) for no reason other than the colour of his skin and the way he looks at them.… Read the rest