Perfect Roles For Actors

To my understanding there's never really been a "true" Count of Monte Cristo put to film (i.e. one that follows the book). Of course it would be impossible to put the entire book in a movie as the book gets quite soap-opera-y toward the end (this is due to the fact that it became a serial fiction article in French periodicals and Dumas began to write it as such as the Count gains more extraneous characters & sub-plots and virtually becomes a detective as well as a vigilante, revenge-seeker and deliverer of justice).

Still, most film versions seem to disregard even some of the major details of the story (although, I've never seen the Depardieu miniseries version, which I hear is one of the truest and serves the incredibly detailed story well by stretching it out over a miniseries.)

That's interesting about the serialization. I haven't read the book so I'm going by the basic summary of what happens, but the key points seem to be adhered to very well by this series (the ending especially). What's also interesting is that in each version a different villain seems to dominate. Sometimes it's de Villefort; in this it was Baron Danglars by virtue of how truly repellent Morris Perry makes him – but he was great at that.

I'm not out to give away spoilers, but the book does not necessarily deliver the happy (or sappy) ending - yet most of the movies somehow depict Edmund and Mercedes riding off into the sunset together or insinuate that Mercedes' son is also Edmund's son (but he is not).

It's hard to say who the leading villain is since there are three main ones, but it always seemed that it might be Count de Morcef (Fernand Mondego) only because he ends up with Edmund's former fiance; Mercedes.