When everyone looks like they came from a pack of playing cards.
The Three Musketeers (1921) is a silent retelling of the classic Dumas tale, or at least so I wish. It was paired with a collection of anachronistic classic music that drove my Arts Editor and myself up the wall.
That music, combined with an opening that has, at best, languid pacing, it gets off to a dubious start. This is a thorough story, first introducing us to Cardinal Richelieu and the suspicious King Louis, and the mutual loathing of Richelieu, who’s really quite creepy, and Queen Anne. Then we are introduced to the noble roots of our hero, D’Artagnan, in a little town in Gascony, where his father, an impoverished nobleman and former Musketeer, has sought to instill French nobility principles in him. One which brought us to laughter was “… Remember, my son, that your ancient nobility gives you the right to the best in France,” followed by admonishments to fight as much as he can, and take what he thinks he deserves.
It explains the outright theft we see later.
But never mind that. Through some mildly clumsy plotting, D’Artagnan manages to become a cadet in the Musketeers, bump hurriedly into the eponymous heroes, and murder, or at least injure, the Cardinal’s men seeking to arrest them. But while I say clumsy plotting, I have to admit that a fake message to the Duke of Buckingham, would-be lover to Queen Anne, was a nice touch. While the Duke is unexpected, it gives Anne the chance to gift him with a fancy something-or-other with twelve diamonds.
And then comes Cardinal’s gambit, sending Milady de Winter to England to steal the buckle, and bring it back to doom the Queen.
Well, Milady accomplishes the first, but while she’s at it, the All for one and one for all crowd is busily in pursuit, sacrificing themselves to keep D’Artagnan rolling along, and at Calais he is easily enough across the Channel. Arriving too late to intervene in the theft of the buckle, D’Artagnan stows away aboard her ship, and daringly steals the buckle back.
And now it’s the rush back to Paris, where Anne is in dire straits as the Cardinal prepares to close his fist around her throat. D’Artagnan, deprived of companions, manages to fight his way to Anne’s apartment, thus saving her before collapsing in a heap.
Perhaps the most surprising plot twist? The Cardinal’s reaction to his defeat, which I shan’t reveal.
And the most disappointing character? The Cardinal has a truly foreboding assistant, a Father Joseph – who ends up doing nothing, nothing at all. Very depressing. Maybe he ended up on the cutting room floor for this print.
A silent movie that clocks in at two hours long is not a trivial thing to watch, and the accelerated movements common to movies of this age take away from what could have been really inspiring brawls, but overall it’s not a bad movie.
Even if Douglas Fairbanks does look a trifle smarmy.
