The Count of Monte Cristo

The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) Director: Kevin Reynolds. Cast: Jim Caviezel, Richard Harris, Guy Pearce.

This lavish, $38m retelling of Alexandre Dumas’ classic tale of revenge made extensive use of several distinctive Maltese locations, and the cast and crew spent five weeks filming on Malta and Comino.

The French port of Marseille in 1814 was recreated using Valletta’s Grand Harbour for panoramic views and Vittoriosa was used for the bustling dockside featured in the early scene in which the hero, Edmond Dantès (Jim Caviezel), and villain, Fernand Mondego (Guy Pearce), return to Marseille, their home.

Director Kevin Reynolds and production designer Mark Geraghty had toured the Italian and French coasts in search of a suitable location for this scene, but found that every other skyline was ‘blemished’ by twentieth-century buildings. “I was pretty sceptical that we were going to find anything even approaching the look we needed,” Reynolds told the London Times in 2002.  "Until we saw Malta.”

The scene in which Edmond and his fiancée, Mercédès (Dagmara Dominczyk) make love on the rocks after Edmond’s return home, was filmed below the battlements of Fort St Elmo in Valletta.

A night-time carnival scene set in Rome, during which Edmond fakes the kidnapping of his son, Albert, was filmed in the fortified city of Mdina, using the square in front of St Paul’s Cathedral and the narrow, winding streets around it.

Perhaps the most distinctive Malta location used was St Mary’s Tower, the cliff-top fort perched 150 metres above the sea close to the southern tip of Comino. Built in 1618, the tower was used in The Count of Monte Cristo as the exterior of the infamous Château d’If, the prison where Dantès is kept for 13 years and where he is taught swordplay by Abbé Faria (Richard Harris).

You get a great view of the tower on the ferry crossings between Malta and Gozo and if you take a boat trip to Comino itself you can walk along the cliffs and climb up to the top of the tower. Look down towards the foot of the cliffs as you walk from Comino’s Blue Lagoon to the fort and you’ll see a network of small caves. In one of these the Monte Cristo crew filmed the treasure trove that Dantès’ plunders in order to become the fabulously wealthy count.

The elegant interiors of Mondego’s home in the film and the fabulous gardens of the chateau that Dantès buys soon after becoming the Count were both supplied by Palazzo Parisio, the 19th-century stately home on Victory Square in the town of Naxxar. The palazzo has been described as “a miniature Versailles” and this made it a perfect stand-in for the French opulence of the two Monte Cristo settings.

Malta Movie Trivia: As well as Monte Cristo, the late Richard Harris appeared in three other Malta-shot productions: Orca: Killer Whale, Gladiator and the mini-series Julius Caesar.