As a previous commenter has stated,George Sanders' Gurko Lanen character isn't all unsympathetic,in fact in "reality" he would've been labeled a great national figure if he had pulled his coup off. If the country had been(and it seems to be implied) founded and ruled by Germanic lords over Slavic types,Lanen coming up from a peasant artisan background already is a true man of the people. The officer class featuring a non masked Clayton Moore represents the old outland overlords are especially resentful that such a one as Lanen has gained ascendancy . Miss Snooty is being properly Victorian looking down on the upstart,but if a climatic sword duel had been written the other way,I am assured Miss Bennett would've become a good Nasty Girl ala Woman In the Window,cooing and ooing at her Lany Nany. And if Louis Hayward had actually been a banker from such a background as the original Count, his sympathies would have gone to a fellow self made man. But it didn't and Gurko Lanen fell to lie in an unmarked grave of swashbuckling cinematic badguys. But unlike many of them,his is still cared for by adherents much like many of Basil Rathbone's blood and thunderers( though I'm sure Robin Hood's foe lies in the family crypt-he was a Norman you know).
Review of The Son of Monte Cristo
