TREASURE OF THE GOLDEN CONDOR - 1953 DVD

In the eighteenth century, Edouard, Marquis of St. Malo, returns to his lavish chateau in Normandy to inform his wife Annette that he has located his late brother Paul's son Jean-Paul, who is supposedly illegitimate. Edouard finds Jean-Paul with his grandfather, Pierre Champlain, and tricks the illiterate boy by telling him that he will live a life of luxury at the chateau. In reality, Edouard has obtained a royal writ giving him claim to Jean-Paul as a bondsman, and as the boy grows to manhood, Edouard forces him to work in the stables. Jean-Paul falls in love with Edouard's arrogant daughter Marie, who returns his affections but is more interested in wealth than in love. Believing that if he stays, he will eventually kill the sadistic Edouard, Jean-Paul plans to run away. Meanwhile, Scotsman MacDougal arrives in the village in search of Father Benoit, who was once a missionary in Guatemala and is a renowned scholar of Mayan texts. MacDougal asks the priest to translate a codex indicating the location of the famed treasure of the golden condor, but when Father Benoit learns that MacDougal has killed to protect the map, he refuses to aid him. Father Benoit instead takes MacDougal to dine with him at the St. Malo estate, where, later that night, Edouard discovers Jean-Paul and Marie meeting in secret. 1953