Die drei Musketiere

Boy is this thing all over the place. Sumptous to be sure it has the MGM touch in spades as far as lavishness goes but an inconsistent tone and some terrible casting choices.

The good-Vincent Price and Lana Turner are perfect in their roles with Lana looking astonishing in some beautiful and some ridiculous costumes. Angela Lansbury, wasted playing Queen Anne, campaigned for the role of Milady; in hindsight it seems incredible that Mayer said no, how great and truly evil she could have been but Lana was a huge star at the time and she is silkily wicked so no real harm was done to the film. June Allyson may not have been the ideal choice but she doesn't disgrace herself as Constance.

The average-Van Heflin, Gig Young and Richard Coote are merely adequate as the musketeers and while Frank Morgan is always a welcome sight he is just so wrong as the king of France.

The bad-Gene Kelly as d'Artagnan, and very bad he is, of course he handles the sword fighting episodes well with a dancers grace. It's his over eager and downright dreadful line readings and reactions that are painful and irritating to watch. Whenever he is on screen the movie stops dead in it's tracks. A very mixed bag.

The Hollywood of the classic studio system is not known for its kindness in adapting great literary works. Often overwrought or oversimplified, cut down or bastardized, the movie versions rarely capture the essence or the form of the books they pretend to adapt.

This one is exceptional. Both the pathos and the verve of the Dumas novel (itself a roman-feuilleton - a serial- which it is rumored Dumas didn't actually write) are wonderfully captured, and Kelly is the dream D'Artagnan. Every bit of physicality and fun that he brought to his choreographies in the musicals is used beautifully to bring grace and energy to the duels. The humor of the star is used quite brilliantly. Compare the toungue-in-cheek pastiche THE DUELLING CAVALIER in SINGING IN THE RAIN with this earlier work. Look up a few of his directorial efforts (The Cheyenne Social Club) with the humor here.

Each fan of Dumas will have his favorite version of THE THREE MUSKETEERS, but we all must agree this is a noble and (overall) successful effort.

"The Three Musketeers" is an adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' novel of the same name. The film features sweeping scenes, bright costumes and classical themes. Gene Kelly does well in an energetic performance as D'Artagnan. The rest of the cast is solid as well, particularly Lana Turner and Vincent Price as the scheming villains.

The film features a number of sword fights which are well staged, but become repetitive. The filmmakers tried to balance the action scenes with the intrigue of Dumas' novel. This was welcome, but I found the film had tedious stretches and didn't completely capture the excitement of the novel.

It starts out as a broad slapstick comedy, and when Gene Kelly has the opportunity to showcase his acrobatic skills, it's good old-fashioned swashbuckling fun. But after the first 20 minutes it turns into mostly heavy drama, and the swordfights are actually few and far between. The problem with the script is that, trying to cover all the characters and subplots of the book, it has no time to develop them enough, and the story lacks a strong central focus. At times you wonder exactly what each person is trying to achieve, and where some of the characters you know are basic have gone (the main example: Richelieu, excellently played by Vincent Price, has only about three of four scenes in the entire film). Still, it's a good-looking, entertaining production. (**1/2)

Gene Kelly's athleticism which is usually on full display in his musical films is given full reign in MGM's big budget adaption of The Three Musketeers, a tale very often told on the big screen. Personally I don't think the movies ever got it quite right, especially when none of the three best actors suited to play D'Artagnan, Errol Flynn, Tyrone Power, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. never got a crack it on the big screen.

The Seventies had an all star epic filming of the Alexandre Dumas classic, but I'm betting that Richard Lester so wished he had all his players under contract to the same studio as Louis B. Mayer did. Look down the cast list, Mayer barely went outside his studio for a player.

I don't think I have to relate any of the plot, one of the most familiar in the world. Gene Kelly fresh off the farm from Gascony with the usual bumptiousness associated with folks from that area of France gets himself in hot water with three Musketeers of the King's personal guard Van Heflin, Gig Young, and Robert Coote. But before fighting any duels with them all three join forces to defeat and send packing some of Cardinal Richelieu's guards. The other three like Kelly's style and he's a musketeer from then on.

That particular duel is choreographed as Kelly would do in any of his numbers in his musicals. It's so good I expected a song to be coming forth almost any minute. This is where Kelly the dancer and choreographer gets to shine.

The rest of the cast is of high quality with Frank Morgan as King Louis XIII, Angela Lansbury as Queen Anne of Austria, Vincent Price as the clever Richelieu, Ian Keith as Price's attack dog Rochefort, Lana Turner as Milady DeWinter who attacks in other ways for Richelieu, June Allyson who's a little too much like her Americanized girl next door as Constance for my taste, John Sutton as the English Prime Minister the Duke of Buckingham, and Keenan Wynn as the loyal if not too bright servant of D'Artagnan.

Milady DeWinter is one of the most evil women in literature and Lana Turner was up to the job. Watching her it's like she channeled back her performance in The Postman Always Rings Twice for this role.

I was curious however that I could find no reference in the film to Richelieu being a Cardinal. In the film he's simply referred to as Richelieu. Note there is no trace of any clerical garb on Vincent Price. My guess is that MGM didn't want to offend the Catholic Church by having a prince of said church shown as the villain. Also as the Cold War was going into deep freeze, Pius XII and his church were seen as an anti-Communist bulwark.

Though I wish that one of the three stars I cited above had ever gotten to play D'Artagnan, The Three Musketeers from MGM in 1948 is not a bad version and Gene Kelly's fans will enjoy it immensely.