Lippert Pictures Series

Robert L. Lippert controlled a successful low-budget American film production and distribution company from 1948 to 1956, producing short, fast-paced westerns and crime films with a penchant for obligatory humor, and the occasional jarring edits. This is my fourth of eight Lippert films.

TREASURE OF MONTE CRISTO (1949)

Though the opening narration tries to justify why this movie has "Monte Cristo" in the title, there is no mention of swords or high-waist tights. Well-directed by William Berke, and distributed by Screen Guild Productions, it attempts to bring Alexandre Dumas to modern-day San Francisco, complete with a prison escape of sorts. It is another fast-paced Lippert Pictures production making a likable film from a constrained budget. And it only removes a mere seventy-eight minutes from your life. One of the better Lippert productions, the film is centered around a descendant of the Count and his sizable fortune. As to be expected, there are those who would like to intercept that treasure. The duped descendant tries to unravel reality during one of his most improbable weeks. The location cinematography by Benjamin Kline puts the viewer on the streets. He even uses a "gun cam" behind the gun's barrel of one detective firing bullets. A competent score by Albert "B-movie" Glasser is well-utilized.

Dashing Glenn Langan is the descendant, a Second Mate on the shipping freighter, Pacific Queen. After dropping anchor, he rescues an assumed damsel in distress, Adele Jergens—the real-life wife of Langan. He and Jergens never looked better than in this film. I doubt anyone in the theater believed her backstory about her mental hospital stay so her guardian could control her wealth. But Langan does. Jergens wants an "arranged" marriage to deflect her pursuers. So it is off to Reno. He becomes the latest Hollywood simpleton completely unglued by a female's lying lips.

In the captivating opening scene, the Cristo fortune liaison is knocked unconscious while recovering in the hospital. Paralyzed, except for the ability to move his eyes, Langan visits him in hopes of discovering his point in the film. It sets up an unintended funny moment. Needing yes or no answers, he suggests the patient move his eyes back and forth, left to right, for the appropriate reply. But it appears he is simply looking at one side of the room, then the other in terror of the strange noise of an attacker. Blinking would have had a less humorous outcome. While Langan leaves the hospital, the liaison is permanently silenced with Langan set up to take the fall. The traditional flashing newspaper headlines inform the viewer of his sentencing to die quicker than his marriage ceremony.

It is rare to find Steve Brodie in an educated professional role, yet true to form he is a crooked underworld lawyer with a studio caterpillar mustache passing himself off as Langan's best defense. But his scheme already included Jergens and he plans to throw the case, removing Langan from any inheritance. Despite his limited screen time, he provides the only spark in the film. Something he often did.

From a story by Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen, the screenplay is intelligent enough, once it gets past Dumas' original intention. In keeping with a number of Lippert productions, a bit of amusing obligatory dialogue is sliced in late in this film. Sid Melton, the weasel working on Brodie's behalf, abducts Jergens, ushering her into a waiting car. Rising above his comical looks, he assumes he might be worthy of her attention. "You know I'm single?" Her deadpan reply is, "I can understand that." She gets shuttled around again by Brodie and she frightfully asks, "What are you going to do?!" He replies, "Two things, and you're the second."

Note: Langan's character was taken in as a young child by an Italian family. His “Papa” and two sons visit him behind bars on more than one occasion. Papa is played by Michael Vallon “witha-the-worsta” stereotypical Italian accent. In keeping with their criminal heritage, the two sons later spring Langan during a prison transfer, shooting out a tire on the police vehicle and arranging for his change of clothes from a well-planted panel truck.