Les trois mousquetaires

In the last of three serials that John Wayne did making his bones in B picture Hollywood, he does what is described as a modern adaption of Alexander Dumas's classic The Three Musketeers. Any resemblance to that novel and this film is completely coincidental.

Wayne is an American pilot who is flying in North Africa and saves Jack Mulhall, Francis X. Bushman, Jr. and Raymond Hatton, Foreign Legionaires, from certain death by machine gunning from the air an attacking Berber tribe. The group of them strike up a great friendship and the three decide to call themselves The Three Musketeers and adopt Wayne as their D'Artagnan.

The Duke with that little action apparently messed up a planned revolution against the colonial occupiers so the would be revolutionaries frame him for gun running and later murder. It takes twelve chapters for Wayne to clear himself and unmask the mysterious masked leader of the Devil's Circle conspiracy, El Shaitan.

In the mess of a film where not one of the white dudes speak with any kind of an accent including the multi-national Foreign Legionaires, you can see elements of The Desert Song, Gunga Din, and Beau Geste. But other than the title not a hint of The Three Musketeers.

Lon Chaney, Jr. and Noah Beery, Jr. both make brief appearances in The Three Musketeers and both get killed early on in the serial. I'm sure neither of them counted this serial as anything they talked up in reminiscing about their careers.

Only confirmed and solid fans of John Wayne should watch this film. I can safely say that Alexander Dumas's spirit becomes most restless when this film is shown.

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 La Chevauchée de la Gloire (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.

An old creaker of a 12 chapter Foreign Legion serial actually puts John Wayne in the forefront of the action despite having him appear only fourth in the credits. The production standards of course were nothing to write home about then and are certainly slapdash now but the action has some nifty inventive moments and it was all shot on location which was a big plus. The good natured comraderie between the "musketeers" was definitely used as a prototype for Gunga Din, made six years later by RKO. Some notable appearances by Noah Beery Jr, Lon Chaney and Yakima Canutt will interest film historians and the adventure is entertaining enough even if you can't get through all the chapters in one sitting. Not the greatest old-time serial ever made I'm sure but I'll watch John Wayne in anything and the DVD was worth the purchase.

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.

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.