Der vierte Musketier

In 1625 an ambitious youth joins forces with THE THREE MUSKETEERS to save the French Queen's honor from the machinations of the cruel Cardinal Richelieu.

Douglas Fairbanks had one of his most popular roles as the swashbuckling hero of Alexander Dumas' 1844 novel. Exulting in his sheer physical vitality, he never walks when he can run, never runs when he can leap. While a bit melodramatic & stagy, Fairbanks is obviously having a wonderful time and he wants his audience to enjoy themselves, too.

As producer, as well as star, Fairbanks ensured fine production values & large sets to backdrop his stunts. Notice particularly the Parisian street scenes, how detailed & exact they are, with the crowds of extras looking as if they had real purpose in what they were doing. Also be mindful of the architectural staging, whether it be walls, rooftops or monumental staircases; they were all built with Fairbanks' physical dimensions in mind, so that he could run, creep or climb along them effortlessly.

To such a degree does Doug dominate the drama, that the characters of the three Musketeers themselves remain largely undeliniated. Léon Bavy as Athos, George Siegmann as Porthos & Eugene Pallette as a most unlikely Aramis are mere window-dressing to showcase Fairbanks' exuberance. Coming off rather better are British actor Nigel de Brulier as the rapacious Richelieu, beautiful Barbara La Marr as the Cardinal's evil agent Milady de Winter & Lon Poff as the sepulchral Father Joseph. Here are three villains worth watching.

Lovely Marguerite De La Motte supplies Doug's love interest. Adolphe Menjou does well as the cold-hearted, vain Louis XIII.

Not surprisingly, the original story has been streamlined & altered in various ways and at least a couple of notable deaths have been omitted so as to provide a happier fadeout. Fairbanks would continue the tale - and reprise the role of D'Artagnan - eight years later in THE IRON MASK (1929).

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What were the facts surrounding the historical Richelieu & Buckingham? Since the novel & films make much of their rivalry, a closer examination is in order.

Both men rose from semi-obscurity to positions of enormous power & influence in their respective kingdoms. Each found it necessary to dominate the weak sovereigns whose patronage they enjoyed. Both endured the utter contempt & hatred of powerful domestic factions allied against them. And were there ever a flirtation between the French Queen Anne of Austria and Buckingham, it was of a very mild nature. There certainly was nothing resembling The Adventure of the Queen's Diamonds and all the derring-do associated with it.

Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal and Duke de Richelieu (1585-1642), came from a minor gentry family which was saddled with enormous financial debt upon the death of his father. However, blessed with a very good brain & a manipulative mother, Richelieu used his intellectual charm to advance his ascent through the Byzantine levels of Church hierarchy. Once having caught the attention of Louis XIII Richelieu never looked back. Eventually wielding absolute authority, the Red Eminence took as his life's mission to thwart Spanish Habsburg hegemony in Europe and to crush all outbreaks of French Protestantism as they arose throughout the kingdom.

For his part, George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham (1592-1628), had his extreme physical attractiveness to thank for grabbing the eye of James I - who liked to dance both ends of the ballroom - and later became the favourite of Charles I as well. The son of a knight, Buckingham soon rose to a lofty pinnacle of power and angered the English nobles by his monopoly of the king's affections and his arrogant accruement of great wealth. As a diplomat & military strategist, Buckingham was hopelessly inept and he needed the king's protection to save him from trial in the Star Chamber. Having failed disastrously in an attempt to succor the Huguenot of La Rochelle, France, he returned to England where he was quickly assassinated by a disgruntled naval officer. When news of Buckingham's death reached London the people rejoiced in the streets.

Another great Douglas Fairbanks film, not one of his best but still hugely entertaining. As an adaptation it is rather abridged, the details and spirit are there but there are versions since that have had much more depth to characterisation and such, the musketeers here are still very fun to watch but can feel like window-dressing. However, as a film and a stand alone there is plenty to love. Aside from the abridgements the only real misgiving was the rushed ending. The Three Musketeers though is still beautifully photographed and the costumes and sets equally evocative and lavish. It is wittily written, a lot of chat especially for a silent film but it has the Dumas spirit and none of it feels like irrelevant filler. As well as rousingly scored, there are three scores available one from 1921 and the others from 1996, the most fitting of the three is Louis F. Gottschalk's from 1921. The story is still diverting and goes at a crisp pace, with lots of twists and turns along with a real sense of adventure, excitement and suspense, basically all the ingredients for a great period adventure. The action sequences are highly athletic with lots of exciting bravado, it is edge-of-the-seat stuff with no signs of clumsiness or predictability. Fairbanks is great, he is full of charisma with touches of arrogance, wit and sparkling humour and tackles his stunts with a real effortless ease. Margarite De LaMotte is a touching Constance and Barbara La Marr a sensual and haunting Milady DeWinter. Adolphe Menjou is appropriately cruel and the Musketeers are well-played, but aside from Fairbanks the standout in the acting department was Nigel De Brulier as a sly and malevolent Richelieu. Overall, the 1973 Richard Lester version is still the definitive adaptation of The Three Musketeers but if we're talking about adaptations being judged on their own this is one of the better and most enjoyable ones, apart from the Burbank Films Australia animated version and the updated one from the Asylum I don't think any of the adaptations are really terrible(yes that is including the 1993 film). 9/10 Bethany Cox

After admiring Douglas Fairbank's smashing looks in the later THIEF OF BAGDAD, I have to say he looks extremely unattractive in these pseudo-historical French costumes and a wig you wonder where he got it from. And not only does he as the star attraction look bad - the French queen (for one) is just as terrible with an equally terrible wig. Not to mention the Three Musketeers: stout, unsporty, unfunny. I wonder if in 1921 this was considered 'attractive'? (I very much doubt it.) Still, some of the scenes are fun to watch, even at epic length (more than two hours running time.) I guess with the right symphonic live music it must have been impressive back then. With cheap (and thin sounding) computer music as a soundtrack on DVD today, it is... a bit dreary. (Sadly.)

Interstingly, there is a 1929 stage operetta of the same title by Benatzky/Charell created for Berlin (and recently revived in Nordhausen, Germany), that makes interesing comparison with this film - whole scenes have been taken 1:1 from it. Only with better music attached to it.

It would be fun to see the film with a Benatzky-based soundtrack!

This light but enjoyable version of the often-filmed story of "The Three Musketeers" also offers Douglas Fairbanks plenty of material that plays to his best strengths. While he made several other movies that had more substance to them than this one does, the role of D'Artagnan is one of the roles that was best suited to his talents.

The adaptation of the Dumas novel considerably abridges both the story and the characters. It does not really attempt to deal with many of the themes of the book, instead concentrating on the parts with the most action and suspense. In itself, this results in a perfectly entertaining movie with plenty of things going on. But to enjoy it, you do have to set aside any expectation that the movie might come up to the book's standard (which in any case would be a difficult goal for a normal-length film feature to accomplish).

Fairbanks revels both in his early scenes as the ambitious young Gascon and in the rest of his sequences as the companion of the Musketeers. He also gets lots of help from the supporting cast. Nigel De Brulier has probably his best role as Cardinal Richelieu (a role he would also play in several later movies), with the austere, reserved Cardinal providing an ideal match for De Brulier's style. Marguerite De La Motte is appealing as Constance, and Barbara La Marr makes Milady de Winter a worthy adversary.

Everything fits together pretty well, and while this film version is much lighter than the novel, it succeeds at what it intended to do.

I think how much you'll enjoy the film will be impacted on how closely you want the film to follow the book (which it doesn't) as well as whether or not you've seen many of Douglas Fairbanks' films. What I mean by the latter is that I think my expectations were way too high for this movie because I expected a VERY physical and athletic film--but it wasn't. This was a HUGE surprise because Fairbanks was known for his amazing stunts--such as in "Thief of Bagdad" or "The Mark of Zorro". I expected to see his great leaps and bounds--but there just weren't very many athletic scenes. Now this is NOT to say that it's a bad film--it's still pretty good. It's just that I think it could have been a lot better. Enjoyable but not among the actor's best films--though the costumes and sets were pretty amazing for 1921.

By the way, the version I saw was the one in the public domain that is linked to IMDb. Oddly, this version has reversed the last two reels of the film!! In other words, it ends and then continues! I am not sure if you can find a corrected version or not.