The Lady in a Mask
France 1858 and the country is still in unrest as Emperor Louis Napoleon (David Bond) sends a group of men to Normandy to hunt down a band of rebels. Lady Christianne (Paula Corday), the niece of the Marquis De Montableau (Robert Warwick) is a masked cavalier who has been left the fabled and much desired sword of Monte Cristo which she plans to use to finance the rebels cause. But things get messy when Minister La Roche (Berry Kroeger) gets the sword and throws the Marquis in jail leading to a brave rescue attempt by the masked Lady Christianne.
I like to try and put myself in the mind of the men who green light movies to try and work out what they were thinking. As such when it comes to "The Sword of Monte Cristo" I can imagine a small time studio boss and his ideas men sitting around a table knowing that action adventure movies were popular but also knowing that they couldn't compete with what a major studio could offer so went with the USP of have a female masked avenger. In fairness the idea is an okay one as a beautiful woman who leads a double life as a masked avenger is always good fun but it does little to save "The Sword of Monte Cristo", a small budget affair which struggles to grab your attention.
Now I am not a great book reader so I don't know how well "The Sword of Monte Cristo" works in conjunction with Alexandre Dumas's "The Count Of Monte Cristo" but I guess it is only tenuously linked via the Cristo fortune. But what we have with "The Sword of Monte Cristo" is just some routine action and adventure, a masked crusader fighting for the rebellion must rescue their father from prison and defeat the bad guys. It is solid but nothing special and relies heavily on the USP of the attractive Paula Corday to make it entertaining which she does whilst the stunt team do a reasonable job of delivering the action. But that is it, just a small budget action and adventure movie which is quickly forgotten.
What this all boils down to is that "The Sword of Monte Cristo" is entertaining and Paula Corday is attractive but it is a small budget and frankly inferior action adventure movie which delivers little you won't find in any other similar action & adventure movies.
