1939 - THE THREE MUSKETEERS, oddball musical/comedy version of this story

This is a strange but not exactly terrible version of the Alexander Dumas classic novel which has been turned into a film at least nine times.  This version adds some mediocre songs to the story and condenses a lot of the plot, but the story is basically still there, mostly.

Don Ameche the perennial lightweight comedian and actor under contract to 20th Century Fox plays D'Artagnan fairly well.  Ameche is almost unrecognizable with the wig and mustache and does a good job with the sword fighting scenes.  Gloria Stuart who was "old Rose" in Titanic plays the Queen,  Lionel Atwell is De Rochefort, D'Artagnan's nemesis but the biggest change to this story is the inclusion of the comedy team called The Ritz Brothers.

Probably the best way to explain The Ritz Brothers is that they were the poor man's version of the Marx Brothers.  In this film they are the comedy and slapstick relief and are they ever the comedy and slapstick relief.  Not that there is much subtle behavior in slapstick but these guys really went for the goofiness.  They do have one good scene where they perform a dance sequence with pie tins strapped to their bodies.

 

This film was directed by Alan Dwan who was one of the early pioneers of Hollywood starting in the silent era and making the transition to sound films.  The  silent films were probably the high point of his career, he made fairly unexceptional sound films.  Dwan shoots most of the movie, particularly the musical sequences like he was just trying to keep the camera out of the way of The Ritz Brothers.

 

This version of The Three Musketeers is a fascinating contrast to the Richard Lester two part super production which also added a lot of humor to the story. Lester's complete version runs 213 minutes compared to this film which is under 80 minutes.

The Three Musketeers has a lot or writers for such a minor film, William A. Drake, Morris M. Musselman, Sam Hellman, Ray Golden and Sid Kulle.  The running time is 73 minutes.