Rightful owner of the kingdom, the Duchess of Zona, is engaged in a power struggle with the evil General Gurko. Edmond, the son of Monte Cristo, dons many disguises to come to the aid of the Duchess.

After greedy men have Edmound Dantes unjustly imprisoned for 20 years for innocently delivering a letter entrusted to him, he escapes to revenge himself on them.

Louis Hayward, star of 1940's Son of Monte Cristo, returns to Alexandre Dumas territory in Columbia's Return of Monte Cristo. This time, Hayward plays the grandson of his namesake Edmond Dantes, who, it will be recalled, was cheated out of his fortune and falsely imprisoned, only to escape and wreak vengeance on his betrayers by assuming the guise of the Count of Monte Cristo. Just like grandpa, the younger Dantes is framed by a trio of connivers and shipped off to Devil's Island. Escaping with a fellow convict, political radical Bombelles, Dantes adopts the bearded guise of an elderly man in order to destroy his enemies and reclaim his birthright. One of his principal antagonists - at least during the first half of the film - is haughty aristocrat Angele Picard, who because she wasn't a part of the original conspiracy genuinely believes that Dantes is a criminal.