El círculo del diablo

According to the authors of "Forgotten Horrors," this serial, "The Three Musketeers" is "the last and best of John Wayne's Mascot's serials is everything a Saturday serial fan could want...There is skillful photography." One reviewer wrote about this serial recently and seems to write reviews just so he can complain about films he does not like and so that he can call people stupid and imbeciles. It appears to give him pleasure to humiliate long deceased people, but this is beyond my understanding.

And an updating of sorts of the Dumas novel, from Mascot Pictures and directors Colbert Clark and Armand Schaefer. The "musketeers" are soldiers in the French Foreign Legion: Clancy (Jack Mulhall), Renard (Raymond Hatton), and Schmidt (Francis X. Bushman Jr.). They are stationed in North Africa where they battle frequent Arab uprisings. During one such battle they are saved by American military pilot Tom Wayne (John Wayne). When Tom is later framed for murder by the insidious "El Shaitan", mysterious leader of the Devil's Circle, the three legionnaires promise to help Wayne is whatever way they can, leading to much high-flying mayhem, desert sands survival, and dangerous shoot-outs.

Despite the title, this is much more Wayne's show than the three legionnaires. Wayne is good at the action scenes, even if his character should be a complete wreck by the end, after multiple fist-fights, falls from great heights, and even being shot a few times. Both Chaney and Beery Juniors have early roles, and it was fun seeing them so young. The story gets repetitive (a drawback for many lesser serials), and I would have liked the three musketeers to have been featured more. The masked bad guy El Shaitan was physically performed by Yakima Canutt with a voice dub from Charles Middleton.

"The Three Musketeers" was the third and final serial made by John Wayne for producer Nat Levine's Mascot Pictures. Oddly enough for Wayne, who made mostly westerns during this period, none of the three serials are westerns. In fact, in all three, he plays a pilot.

The story takes place somewhere in an Arab country where three members of the French Foreign Legion are the only survivors of an attack by Arabs. The three, Clancy (Jack Mulhall), Renard (Raymond Hatton) ans Schmidt (Francis X. Bushman Jr.) are rescued from certain death by Tom Wayne (John Wayne), an American pilot. The three legionnaires dub themselves "The Three Musketeers" (you know: "One for all, and all for one") and Wayne their "D'Artagnan.

A mysterious masked figure known as El Shaitan plots a rebellion against the Legion. Wayne is framed for the murder of his friend Armand Corday (Creighton Chaney) and spends the rest of the story trying to prove his innocence while at the same time attempting to learn the identity of El Shaitan.

Wayne is aided by the Musketeers and Corday's sister Elaine (Ruth Hall). There are of course several suspected "El Shaitans" over the course of the 12 chapters. Among the suspects are Col. Duval (Gordon De Main), the company commander, El Kador (Hooper Atchely) and others. Of course we don't learn the identity of the villain until the last chapter.

As in most of the Mascot serials, there is plenty of action, perilous situations and lots of racing around. I found that this serial had far too many flashback sequences and predictable situations. In its favor, it had Yakima Canutt doing most of the stunts and (shudder) even taking a small speaking part. Look closely for Kermit Maynard and I'm sure I saw Wally Wales (aka Hal Taliaferro) as other legionaires. Noah Beery Jr. appears briefly as Wayne's pal Stubbs.

Creigton Chaney is of course better known as Lon Chaney Jr. a name he would adopt in 1935 and use for the rest of his 40 year career. For John Wayne, he would soon move on to his Lone Star western series and would not appear in another serial.

After John Wayne's character tells his three musketeer friends he can't go with them, he tells them he's promised "Ruth Corday" he'd come back to marry her. He should have said "Elaine" Corday, the correct name for the character. Wayne obviously mixed up the first name of the actress ("Ruth" Hall) with the first name of the character she plays. He does, however, get her name correct in the rest of the film. I only noticed this goof since I am big on details, names and such and just happened to catch the error. Wayne, otherwise can do no wrong. It is always worth seeing him in his early days of film. Action-packed hero whether in the desert, like in this picture, or on the Western trail, he's always the hero.

An American action adventure; A story set in North Africa about three French Foreign Legion soldiers rescued by an army lieutenant. They join forces to find and arrest a mysterious Arab terrorist as he tries to wipe out the Foreign Legion. This film is loosely based on Alexandre Dumas' famous 1844 novel and a truncated version of the story. Its theatrical release came from an original 12-installment serial stitched together in chapter form so there is some summarising of the story throughout but it is unhampered by harsh editing that enfeebled the 70mins version release known as Desert Command (1946). It is a long swashbuckler for its slight storyline and it is not helped by some occasional stilted acting. John Wayne as a d'Artagnan-type is at the forefront of the action and is impressive. The trio of legionnaries: an Irishman, German and Frenchman provide light relief in their good-natured camaraderie. The air of mystery is thin but it there is enough distraction in impressive stunts, chases and physical conflict to make it barely watchable in one sitting. It also has some alluring desert photography shot on location.