This is old Hollywood at its best in a splendid swashbuckler yarn of a corrupt regime somewhere in the Balkans beyond Hungary (evidently Romania, since the religion is orthodox,) and Louis Hayward is as elegant as any Douglas Fairbanks Jr or Errol Flynn, and Joan Bennett, still young and fresh here, plays the part of Olivia de Havilland. The ace of the show however is George Sanders as the crook, impeccably gentlemanly in all his absurdity, and quite convincing as a figure representing corrupt state politics. There are many gorgeous scenes, but the most interesting part of the action is the freedom movement, set ablaze by The Torch, a kind of Balkan Zorro, who encounters all the problems and difficulties in the rowdy Balkans as Zorro in Spanish California. The music is perfectly matched to the action all the way, and the totally artificlal plot causes no disturbance or alarm - the Balkans are like that, and Gurko makes the perfect figurehead. He excelled in crooks like this and always made them perfectly convincing, the more rotten to the core, the better. The story is actually quite original, having nothing to do with Dumas or Monte Christo but fabricated independently by Hollywood's inspired script writers, and the result will remain a joy forever as first class entertainment.