Musty Musketeers

This short subject with the Three Stooges finds the boys as merry fiddlers courting three women when they get kind of dragooned into an errand of mercy.

The reigning monarch is King Cole and as it has come down to us in song and spoken legend the man sent out a call for his pipe, his bowl and those fiddlers three. Meet the three Heifetzes.

Apparently these are the only three with which Vernon Dent as King Cole can trust. They have to rescue his lovely daughter from the hands of the evil magician Mergatroyd played by stooge regular Philip Van Zandt. But the guys in their own zany way are more than a match for him.

As with a lot of the Shemp features it's a rehash from the Stooge salad days. Still the final dueling sequence is hilarious with 3 Stooges barely able to pull it out over one magician.

The value of teamwork.

MUSTY MUSKETEERS is a pretty good remake of FIDDLERS THREE. The sword fight at the end of this one makes a better ending. I can't say this is better than the original, but check it out anyway.

**** out of 4 stars.

This was very good for a remake. I'd say this is the second best remake from the 1953-1956 period. This one gets rid of the stooges playing their fiddles in the beginning and replaces it with a scene in which the stooges propose to their sweethearts and the new footage in the castle is done better than in the original. From there until the new ending it is old footage. But after the magician's box scene in the old footage, it is new footage in which the stooges have a hilarious swordfight with Mergatroyd and his two guards. The new ending is also better than the original's ending. This is better than the original and I highly recommend this one.

Grade: B+

Some recycles are better than others: nothing earth-shattering for the boys by this point in 1954; just maybe one of the patterns Jules White had set--Wrap-arounds of new footage as the bookends of the film, with a glut of stock footage in between.

Nothing that will blow you away if you like the original, but pretty good and way better than a "Flagpole Jitters," for example. Having Diana, Ruth and Norma as the new gals ain't bad, either... :-)

"Musty Musketeers" combines new footage with the 1948 Stooge film "Fiddlers Three." With this remake, a few elements of the storyline are smoothed out, and an entertaining sword fight replaces some of the original film.

The Stooges are living in Cole-Slawvania, around the time of King Arthur. They want to marry their sweethearts, but cannot wed until Princess Alicia, daughter of King Cole (Vernon Dent) marries first. The Stooges stumble onto a plot by the evil Mergatroid (Phil Van Zandt) to marry the princess and take over the kingdom.

In this hybrid remake, the Stooges are not court jesters, as they were in "Fiddlers Three." As such, the songs they sing at the beginning of the original film are sadly edited out. In their place, however, is more story exhibition showing the Stooges and their fiancées. A fun sword fight makes up the extra new footage, and seeing Shemp bite Mergatroid's nose is hilarious!

It is often amazing to see how smoothly the new footage of the Stooges was placed into earlier films. Director Jules White deserves much credit for this. Sets were meticulously redone, sometimes five to seven years after the original sets were constructed. Wardrobe is to be credited as well; the Stooges and Phil Van Zandt appear to wear the same costumes in the new footage as they did six years earlier. The Stooges should be credited as well; except for a little extra baggage under Moe's eyes, the Stooges don't appear to have aged at all!

The seamless addition of new footage into the old, along with the fun sword fight, makes "Musty Musketeers" one of the better hybrid remakes. Although "Fiddlers Three" is available on DVD, "Musty Musketeers" is not. See it if you get the chance, though. 7 out of 10.