Due to its efficient combination of action, melodrama and exotic history, The Three Musketeers, the 1844 novel by Alexandre Dumas, became immensely popular among filmmakers, which resulted in a large number of adaptations being produced from the earliest days of cinema. This multitude of The Three Musketeers films also provides film historians with good reference points to chronicle changes in styles, content and technological development of cinema.
One of the more important of such points is the 1948 Hollywood film directed by George Sidney, best known as the first adaptation made in colour. The plot begins in 1625 when d’Artagnan (played by Gene Kelly), son of a petty noble from Gascony, travels to Paris in order to join the elite unit of Royal Musketeers. There he runs afoul of three Musketeers – Athos (played by Van Heflin), Porthos (played by Gig Young) and Aramis (played by Robert Coote) – and has to fight a duel with all three of them. The duels are interrupted by the arrival of guards in the service of the evil prime minister Richelieu (played by Vincent Price), which results in a scuffle in which d’Artagnan sides with the Musketeers, displays his excellent swordsmanship and becomes their best friend.
The Musketeers are soon called to save Queen Anne (played by Angela Lansbury) from disgrace, when it turns out that she was having an affair with the English prime minister, the Duke of Buckingham (played by John Sutton). Richelieu, upon learning about this, has the diamonds that Anne had given to Buckingham stolen, hoping that their absence would ruin the Queen in the eyes of King Louis XIII (played by Frank Morgan). D’Artagnan, in the meantime, falls in love with the Queen’s confidante Constance Bonacieux (played by June Allyson) and, with her help, goes to England to retrieve the diamonds. But Richelieu has a secret weapon in the form of Countess Milady De Winter (played by Lana Turner), a beautiful but ruthless woman who would stop at nothing, including using her seductive abilities, to advance Richelieu’s agenda.
The creation of the swashbuckling genre in Hollywood is often credited to Douglas Fairbanks, whose 1921 version of The Three Musketeers was an enormous hit of the silent era, but it doesn’t look that impressive now. Compared with it, the 1948 version, with its sound and bright colours, looks like a great improvement and is actually much closer to films we might see today. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, the studio behind it, was at the zenith of its power at the time, having already built a reputation on colourful big-budget musicals.
While Sidney’s film plays it straight, unburdened by song and dance numbers, talented dancer Gene Kelly plays a very playful version of D’Artagnan, especially in the first part of the film, which contains some well-choreographed swordfighting scenes. Despite flirting with light comedy and even some slapstick, Kelly took his role very seriously and had actually taken fencing lessons to play D’Artagnan well. He and the rest of the crew actually had a very good time on set and, together with the film’s great box office success, that explains why The Three Musketeers became Kelly’s favourite non-musical film.
Old-school Hollywood action is well-matched with old-school melodrama, although Kelly lacks chemistry with June Allyson, who does her best but can’t overcome the one-dimensional nature of her angelic character. It is quite a different story with Lana Turner, one of the greatest stars of 1940s Hollywood, who delivers one of the most iconic performances as the sultry, manipulative and evil Milady De Winter. Vincent Price is also great as the regal but manipulative Richelieu, whose subtle intimidation is telegraphed by his height. Van Heflin, one of the greatest character actors of his generation, provides another good performance as Athos, the Musketeer who hides a humiliating personal secret under the guise of hedonism.
George Sidney, although not considered to be among the top directors of his time, does a more than solid job with the large MGM resources at his disposal. The plot goes smoothly and the audience doesn’t notice the film lasting almost two hours and, despite being shot on California locations, the props and sets make a convincing recreation of 17th century France and England. The colours are bright and appealing, while the music score by Herbert Stothart adds to the melodrama by using motifs from Tchaikovsky, openly mentioned in the credits.
Although screenwriter Robert Ardrey complained about studio interference and having the rich content of Dumas’ novel simplified, this version of The Three Musketeers is one of the rare ones that keeps some of the novel’s darker content near the end. The script also has plenty of double entendres related to sex and a protagonist who is implied to be promiscuous, which is something unusual for Hollywood under the yoke of the MPAA Production Code. Probably in order to appease the Catholic Church, whose teachings the main censor Joseph Breen promoted in the Hays Office, MGM erased all references to Richelieu being a cardinal.
The Three Musketeers became a massive hit and Gene Kelly reaffirmed his position as a star, which would lead to further triumphs in the 1950s. That included Singin’ in the Rain, a musical in which he appears in a swashbuckling “film within a film”, Royal Rascal, using footage from the 1948 film. Sidney’s film became the most successful adaptation of Dumas’ novel by that time, being dethroned a quarter of a century later by the celebrated Richard Lester version.
RATING: 7/10 (+++)
_
Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
InLeo blog @drax.leo
InLeo: https://inleo.io/signup?referral=drax.leo
Unstoppable Domains: https://unstoppabledomains.com/?ref=3fc23fc42c1b417
Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax y
Bitcoin Lightning HIVE donations: https://v4v.app/v1/lnurlp/qrcode/drax
Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax
1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e
BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7
Posted using CineTV