The Corsican Brothers

The Corsican Brothers" is a 1941 black and white adventure films from the Alexander Dumas novel (1844) of the same name. It was the 8th adaptation of the book to film, and would continue to be adapted including "Cheech and Chong's The Corsican Brothers" (1984) and "Start the Revolution without Me" (1970). This is probably the best of the serious adaptations, but that's not saying much. The acting, photography, and music are all very ordinary, with nothing noteworthy to remark on. The special effects (using Fairbanks as his own brother) are relatively poor, even given the date of the film.

If you like films about France in the pre-industrial age, my favorites are Marat/Sade (1967), Napoleon (1927), A Tale of Two Cities (1935), The Count of Monte Cristo (1934) and The Three Musketeers (1921, 1935).

Based on the famous Alexander Dumas novel of the same name, Siamese twins, Mario and Lucian Franzi are separated at birth by surgery and adopted by different parents. Lucian is raised in Corsica as a bandit, while Mario grows up in Paris as a suave gallant, but Lucian has a special psychic ability to feel his brother's feelings, though he is not even aware of his existence. At age 21, they are reunited in Corsica by their foster-parents and are informed that their parents were murdered by Count Colorra who has become the ruler of Corsica by killing off all his enemies through vendettas. In typical Sicilian fashion, the bandit brothers swear vengeance and start their campaign by attacking Colorra's interests. Mario becomes romantically involved with Countess Isabelle Gravini who is under pressure from Colorra to marry him and saves her from Colorra's clutches. Lucian who also falls in love with Isabelle,becomes jealous of his brother and abandons him when Colorra captures Mario. How Lucian escapes and gets his girl constitutes the final part of the movie.

The highlight of this movie is Douglas Fairbanks, Jr, who stars in the title roles with great gusto and suavity. He is great in roles in like this, much better than his father was. However, to swashbuckling buffs, the swordfights in this film are, perhaps, only of middling quality. While Fairbanks carries the film on his broad shoulders, his co-star Ruth Warrick is not impressive. And Basil Rathbone would have been a great choice to play the villain Colorra rather than Akim Tamiroff who comes across more as a buffoon than as a sinister Sicilian cutthroat.

In summary, "The Corsican Brothers" is a pleasant, highly watchable movie, with just the right amount of violence to make it exciting. However, the director Gregory Ratoff should have portrayed the unsavory institution of vendetta which blighted so many families in the isle of Sicily, in a less approving light.

Reviewed by Sundar Narayan

It was hard for me to believe this film was made in 1941 because it deals with the operation of Siamese Twins and a doctor named Enrico Paoli, (H.B.Warner) who is able to perform surgery and separate these twin boys and give them a life. However, Dr. Enrico worries about the soul of these twins and hopes that one is not without one. There are times in this film when I think I am seeing a Boris Karloff film with all kinds of experiments bringing people back from the dead and mixing all kinds of steamy chemicals glowing in the dark. The star of this picture is Douglas Fairbanks Jr., (Lucien Franchi/Mario Franchi) who stars in both roles as the twin boys and gives an outstanding performance. Akim Tamrioff, (Colona) plays a ruthless person who controls Corsica where this film takes place and is responsible for the deaths of Lucien and Mario father and mother. This is a film which is way ahead of its time and is very entertaining with Douglas Fairbanks Jr., doing all the sword swinging like his father years ago. Great Film.

Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.'s final film before enlisting in Uncle Sam's navy was The Corsican Brothers. It's the tale of the feuding houses of Franchi and Colonna who've got a thing going on Corsica that would outstrip what those Hatfields and McCoys are doing in the Appalachians in the USA.

Malevolent Baron Colonna and his brother Tomaso played by Akim Tamiroff and John Emery respectively launch a preemptive strike against the House of Franchi which has gathered to celebrate the birth of twin sons. However it turns out that the twins are Siamese twins. As the Colonna clan descend on the feasting Franchis and massacre all the adults, family physician H.B. Warner takes the twins and successfully separates them at birth. Family friend Walter Kingsford takes one twin to Paris and the other is given to Franchi family retainer J. Carrol Naish to raise deep in the Corsican woods.

Of course the twins grow up to both be Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. and when they are reunited, start their own reign of terror on the usurping Colonnas who at first can't figure out what's happening.

Alexandre Dumas, pere who wrote this novel was a very clever fellow indeed. Though the concepts of ego and id hadn't been invented by Sigmund Freud, Dumas was writing about man's dual nature seen in the characters of both Mario and Lucien Franchi.

Fairbanks in the difficult task of performing two separate characters does a magnificent job. He really does take on a whole different personality as the dashing Mario and the brooding Lucien. What drives them apart temporarily is that both fall big time for Ruth Warrick who if this film had been made at Warner Brothers, Olivia DeHavilland would have had the part.

The Corsican Brothers, though one of Dumas's minor works is brought to the screen with dash and aplomb. Enough swashbuckling action to satisfy that taste and some real good acting, especially by Douglas Fairbanks, Jr.

Two babies are born connected together in this film adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' story. But in order for them to live a fulfilling and healthy life, their father asks the attending doctor to separate them. They survive the operation and are taken away from the family estate, during a revolt in which the babies' parents are killed. Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. plays the twins and gives good, fleshed out performances as both brothers, as he tries to avenge his parents' death. Ruth Warrick, from All My Children and Citizen Kane, is very lovely as the love interest, who coincidentally is the object of desire of the bad guy, Akim Tamiroff, who killed Doug's parents. Despite Doug carrying the film and pulling off credible performances, it's really Akim as the villain who steals the spotlight from him, as he gives a very compelling and three-dimensional performance, making the character seem even more real to the viewer than anyone else. With the imagination and creativity of Alexandre Dumas, this is one film to discover today.