That this take on the novel "The Count of Monte Cristo" by Alexandre Dumas updates the tale is a mixed blessing. Although the Thanhouser company that produced it had a reputation for literary adaptations, it was a minor studio that lacked the resources to make the sort of spectacle usually expected of the popular story or to translate the complex and hefty text cinematically. Plus, the last two times it had been adapted to screen, it was the subject of a lawsuit between studios that probably hurt both of their bottom lines (see the history of the 1913 "The Count of Monte Cristo" and, by extension, that of the 1912 production). On the other hand, Thanhouser's modern retelling is very bad, with plot holes abounding, action sequences at sea without the budget apparently to produce them, and a creepy relationship between a girl and her "doctor-man." On the surviving print, even the title is partly misspelled in a partly Anglicized fashion as "A Modern Monte Christo" (surviving promotional material and newspaper accounts spell "Cristo" correctly, though).
Yet, its failure cannot be entirely blamed on studio finances, as Thanhouser did a fine job of modernizing Oscar Wilde's novel, "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (1915). Their prior short "The Evidence of the Film" (1913) is fully deserving of its inclusion on the National Film Registry. The best thing about "A Modern Monte Cristo," however, may be that it's so poorly written and constructed that it's kind of amusing. Jennifer L. Jenkins ("The Spectacle of Monte Cristo," printed in "French Literature on Screen") calls it, "A fast-paced gallimaufry of The Adventures of Dolly, The Tempest, and Robinson Crusoe, with a pearl-rich oysterbed and a Wright Brothers-era airplane." While I rather agree with that summary, it does flatter the sloppy mess that's all over the place within its under-an-hour runtime.
In this one, the Count is replaced by a Dr. Emerson, who assumed the identity of a General Fonsca of Brazil after he's betrayed by his friend and romantic competition, William Deane, who plays a combination of the parts of Fernand and Danglers, as well as some of Villefort, from the book. The doctor is arrested for a crime he didn't commit. The next scene reveals via a newspaper that--somehow--the doctor faked his suicide sometime after the arrest and that, a year later, his fiancée has married his rival, Deane. We never see the woman these men have fought over, though, as we're informed she died at some point. Just as suddenly, it appears that Deane is a single father with a child of obviously more than one year of age.
While dad somehow makes money from sinking ships, the little girl wanders off in "Adventures of Dolly" routine--eventually knocking herself unconscious aboard one of those doomed sea vessels. Through another inexplicable case of poor storytelling, the doctor is now a sailor on his enemy's ship and so ends up saving the girl's life. But, wait, a storm lands the girl and her "doctor-man" on a deserted island. He discovers the pearls, which I guess must've been worth a lot more back then, because their extraction supposedly will make him the richest man in Brazil. After a biplane discovers the two on the island, he sends the test pilots off with her and a note to her father, Deane, that he will exact his revenge through her. How does he plan to exact this revenge exactly? How does he even get off the island when rescuers who come back for him can't find him? Who knows.
The first part of the doctor-turned-general's plans, it seems, involve waiting for the girl to grow up, get into a meet-cute with a guy whose dog steals their clothes while her and her friend are skinny dipping, and then to have that guy kidnapped and trapped upon one of Deane's sinking ships so that the girl ends up marrying her "doctor-man." Yeah, I don't get it, either, but it seems disturbingly elaborate. To be fair, so did the Count of Monte Cristo's plans. Difference is, though, that Dumas had the care to follow through on his intricate plot. These filmmakers, on the other hand, skip over integral parts of the story--and with too many iris openings and closings as transitions--and, yet, still include a flashback to that skinny-dipping scene in the very scene that follows it. That's just a careless lack of craft.