Belated Movie Reviews

I gotta say, running around in those costumes must have been a bear.

The Magnavox Theatre (1950), much like Studio One, was a run of hour long, disconnected stories, which I will treat as movies. Their lone episode which was not broadcast live, and which we recently enjoyed, was The Three Musketeers, the classic Dumas story of love, duty, and the subversion of the King – from all sides, his wife the Queen, Cardinal Richelieu, even the cadet-Musketeer who finds himself assisting the Queen – and he’s not aware of it.

Such are the ways of despotic power.

It’s the old story here, as England is currently occupying part of France, and the Cardinal, despite his ecclesiastical trappings, is outraged at England’s brazen ambitions, and angered by the vacillating King. Now Queen Anne has a secret tryst with the English Duke of Buckingham, and, as a memento, gives two of her prize jewels, which were gifts from the King, to the dashing Duke. The Cardinal, suspecting something is up, has his henchman Rochefort keeping an eye on the Queen and her maid, and this is when we encounter D’Artagnan and the eponymous heroes of the tale, as the former has already bumped into the latter, agreed to serial duels, been interrupted by Richelieu’s men that are enforcing an edict against dueling, beat them all up, and ended up becoming pals as D’Artagnan becomes a cadet of the Musketeers.

D’Artagnan rescues the maid from Rochefort’s assistants and is, perforce, introduced to the Queen and Duke in a most hurried way. But Richelieu’s special assistant, Milady, has spotted the jewel gift, and soon there’s a plan afoot to steal the jewels from the Duke by Milady, manipulate the King into requiring the Queen to wear them, and then reveal her perfidy – or at least love for the wrong guy – for all to see.

Thus, the frantic dash for England, arriving just late, and then the frantic dash back, all the while leaving the various Musketeers behind to hold off the bad guys, if in fact any are bad – it’s refreshing that everyone thinks they’re working for the best interests of France, rather than it being depraved lunatics vs those whiter than fresh-driven snow.

(Can you tell we’ve been enduring snow squalls in April around here?)

A rousing climax, and some commentary on amatory technique close our classic tale. While I think the acting was good, and damn near everyone is dashing or lovely, as required, the quality of the print was poor. The fencing was little more than bodies wiggling blurrily around on the screen; one never got the sense of a hero in dire straits and battling his way out of it through some resourceful trick. And a story like this really requires flashy color; the black & white of this flick is disappointing.

Still, it’s compact and, most of the time, it’s possible to tell a Musketeer (or wannabe) from the Cardinal’s men.

Fun, but not great fun.