The Count of Monte Cristo (1975)

Probably all film adaptations of Alexandre Dumas' classic revenge story, the roughly 1000-page brick The Count of Monte Cristo, need to abridge characters and subplots in order to fit something sensible into a movie runtime, so this entertaining 1975 made-for-tv adaptation needs to be excused for dispensing of one of my favourite of Dumas' eighteen chapter releases, the episode introducing the electrifying Luigi Vampa, leader of a band of Italian smugglers, and probably noone can blame the movie for letting the intensity of Edmond Dantés' love for Mercedes extinguish long before their very late reunion - there is just too much other stuff to cover - but can anyone forgive the movie Richard Chamberlain's Count's whitened and slicked back 'do or the poster's redundant hyphen?

★★★☆☆

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Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986)

The Canon Group intended to release an Allan Quatermain trilogy, but even before this 1986 sequel to King Soloman's Mines is over, there are signs the money has dried up and number three isn't going to happen, for example, while Quatermain (Richard Chamberlain) and his fiancée, Jesse Huston (Sharon Stone, reprising her Razzie Worst Actress-nominated role) trek across Africa searching for his brother (Chamberlain's partner at the time, Martin Rabbett), the dangers they face are not massive Indiana Jones boulder setpieces but just incredibly low-budget things like the ditch they stumble across which they simply jump, or the bats they find which simply fly away, or the snakes, two Cecils-the-Lion, and cannibalistic tribespeople they encounter which Quatermain simply shoots, and if anyone remains hopeful for a third in the series after all these underwhelming things, the climactic wire fu endscenes with their conspicuous wires, undisguised safety harnesses, and golden porridge remove all doubt.

★☆☆☆☆

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