La Chevauchée de la Gloire

This compilation from the serial "The Three Musketeers" (nothing to do with Alexandre Dumas' story) is probably more notable for it's more impressive aerial acrobatics than for anything we see from the actors. John Wayne leads the cast as one of a trio of French Foreign legionnaires dealing with renegade Arab forces led by the enigmatic "El Shaitan" who is smuggling weapons to the local tribes. It frequently uses the music to cover up for lack of decent audio and though it does try to make much more use of outdoor, rather then studio scenarios - quite brave (and expensive) for 1933, it is still a pretty ropey affair to look at. It's still worth a watch as an historical piece of cinema, but keep your sights aimed low...

The film "Desert Command" is a condensed version of the 1933 serial "The Three Musketeers". I believe that it would be better to watch the entire serial than this edited version but this film will give you get jest of of it. It's merely "okay". I think it needed more of the serial added to the edited film version to make it better - a few things are missing to get a better story out of it.

I enjoyed this film to a degree, it's great to see the actors in something different. It's just the story that is lacking along with better editing to make this film more enjoyable.

Watch if you are a die hard John Wayne or Lon Chaney fan.

6/10

Desert Command (1946)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

The French Legionnaires are in the Sahara desert fighting some Arab gunrunners when they run into some trouble. But have no fear because Tom Wayne (John Wayne) comes through with a plane and wipes out the bad guys. Soon he and The Three Musketeers form a friendship and have to try and bring down an evil Arab who is doing illegal things.

DESERT COMMAND is a feature length version of the 1933 serial THE THREE MUSKETEERS. If you're familiar with these feature versions then you know that they usually cut out almost two hours worth of footage and it comes across as a confusing mess. I was shocked to see how this one here managed to tell a pretty straight story and if you didn't already know this was a serial you probably wouldn't even realize that it's missing so much footage.

I found this to be pretty entertaining thanks to a pretty good cast and some of them giving really bad performances. This includes Wayne who is all over the place here, which I was shocked to see. I recently watched a lot of his "B" Westerns from this period and he wasn't nearly as bad in them as he is here. Some of his line delivery is extremely bad but it's still fun seeing him. Lon Chaney, Jr. (still working under his original name) also gives a pretty bad performance as he was still years away from tuning his craft. Noah Beery, Jr. and silent star Francis X. Bushman Jr. are in the supporting cast.

As I said, the story itself holds up fairly well in this 72-minute version but the most impressive thing were the various stunts. I thought the stunt work was extremely good and we got some pretty good action scenes scattered throughout the running time. I'd also argue that the ending, which turns into a semi-horror film, was also quite good. DESERT COMMAND certainly isn't a masterpiece but it's mildly entertaining.

Released in 1946, this feature is cobbled together from a 12 part 1933 Mascot serial, THE THREE MUSKETEERS, and purports to be based upon the classic work by Dumas, with the action transferred to the Sahara and involving a struggle of the French Foreign Legion opposite a secret group of Arab villains, with John Wayne's character mentioned in the script as D'Artagnan to a trio of guardsmen. The original serial is grotesquely silly, and this synthesis is, if possible, even worse, with situations and dialogue that are numbingly puerile; however, if the film lacks any direction whatsoever, the viewer cannot fail but be amazed at the athletic equestrian stuntwork of Yakima Canutt and his crew of worthies, actively and dramatically superior as they are to the remainder of the performers.

An American mystery action spy adventure; A story about a trio of foreign legionnaires who confront a mysterious Arab terrorist when their rescuer is framed for murder. This is a 70 minute movie edited from a a 1933 film serial "The Three Musketeers". It is loosely based on Alexandre Dumas' famous 1844 novel. The film achieves a period setting and it has some good aerial acrobatics and a few diverting action sequences, but it is poorly constructed and looks choppy because scenes are stitched together without good flow and unaided by musical theme. The performances from most of the cast look stilted.