Les trois mousquetaires

Movie serials aren't sophisticated entertainment and they are jam-packed with contradictory scenes (such as SEEING a hero get blown up in one episode, only to see in the second episode that he SOMEHOW escaped) and inconsistencies. They were hastily made and quality was NOT a huge concern. That being said, I do enjoy many serials and could recommend a few...just not "The Three Musketeers"!

Despite the name, the serial is about the French Foreign Legion back around 1933. It begins with three soldiers and friends about to be killed by renegades...only to be saved by Tom Wayne (John Wayne) and his airplane. However, soon you realize that almost everyone in the story is extremely stupid...too stupid. When a turncoat is killed by the evil El Shaitan, very badly fabricated evidence is planted implicating Tom for the killing. And, despite his service record AND how bad and unconvincing the evidence is AND that Tom was close friends with the dead guy, suddenly an arrest warrant is issued for him AND the dead man's sister (who is also Tom's girlfriend) suddenly believes Tom is evil and sets out to kill him. Oddly, when she finally catches up to him, he convinces her in about 2 seconds he didn't kill her brother...and she believes it! Huh?! Did the woman have an unsuccessful brain transplant and this might explain her changing her opinions so quickly? And what about the officers in the Legion? Could they be half as stupid as the film portrays them to be?

The bottom line is that apart from a few nice action scenes, to believe the story you must assume everyone is an imbecile...otherwise the story makes no sense. Very bad writing, limp acting and indifferent direction make this a hard serial to finish...and even for the genre it's incredibly weak and unenjoyable.

By the way, many years later this 12-part serial was edited into an incomprehensible mess called "Desert Command". It never makes any sense as most of the film is missing...but it's really no worse than seeing this serial...especially since the heavily trimmed film is so much shorter in duration.

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.

Alas, this is more interesting than enjoyable.

The script is rather muddled, and, despite a high-quality cast, the acting is ... well, to be polite, lacking.

Some of those good ol' country boys just do not make very convincing Arabs. (But they sure are good cowboys.)

John Wayne is today usually billed as the star, but he was listed fourth in the credits and was still relatively new in Hollywood at the time of the release. Even then he was showing the charm that would make him a star.

A tighter script and better directing should have made this a classic serial, but they are missing.

Still, this is one to see if only for the historical value.

Let me warn you: The DVD sold by the apparently dishonest and dishonorable Digiview company is more advertising for the company's other wares than a good presentation of this serial. There are only four of the 12 chapters, and I think the company is guilty of theft and fraud.

The picture seems to be ninth or tenth generation, and the sound is equally bad.

I urge everyone not to buy any product from Digiview.

(((This is an added note: After reading my comments here, a person wrote me that Digiview usually provides a buyer with value for the money. I was told "The Three Musketeers" is not typical fare from the company. I will leave my comment, above, but am happy to make this notation that Digiview, http://www.digiviewus.com, apparently is a company to buy from.)))

This is a long overdue update: Digiview does indeed include the complete serial. All the chapters are there. They are there in TWO DISCS, but the jerky retailer from whom I bought my copy had only the first disc. Quite by accident, from another jerky retailer, I found the second disc, so I now have the complete serial.

I hope readers and Digiview will accept my apology and my correction.

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.

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.