Les trois louf'quetaires

Often underrated by film buffs. Don Ameche has never been more charming or vibrant than in this parody of the Dumas classic. He is handsome, he can sing, and he is a great comic actor. The casting of the Ritz Brothers, however, is an obvious attempt to raise their comedic profile. It doesn't work, and their charm remains, as many reviewers have noted, an acquired taste. The script panders to the nonsensical impulses of the times. It is interesting to note that this film was released in 1939, the same banner year as "Gone with the Wind" and numerous other successful Hollywood productions.

A musical comedy version of the swashbuckling classic starring Don Ameche and the Ritz Bros? It sounds like a Catskill burlesque sketch, but turns out to be a straight, if bare-bones, version of Dumas, with mistaken identity (times 3) swapping Al, Jim & Harry in for Athos, Aramis & Porthos. Vet megger Alan Dwan was an old hand at this type of material (his THE IRON MASK/'29 -- in the restored KINO edition, please -- is one of the great Dumas adaptations) and the production has a giddying pace and a surprisingly sumptuous look to it. But the songs are unmemorable (to put it nicely) and leave an already short film with hardly enough time to fit in a measly Cliff Notes edition of the narrative.

Three Musketeers, The (1939)

*** (out of 4)

D'Artagnan (Don Ameche) goes to join The Three Musketeers but he ends up teaming up with three misfits (The Ritz Brothers) posing as the Musketeers. I really wasn't expecting too much out of this film but found myself enjoying it throughout the short 73-minute running time. Ameche is terrific in his role and he pulls off the swordplay very nicely and his musical numbers are also very good. The Ritz Brothers have a poor reputation but so far I've enjoyed the two films of theirs that I've seen (the other being The Gorilla). This film also benefits from a very strong supporting cast, which includes Lionel Atwill, Gloria Stuart, Pauline Moore and a very funny John Carradine. The film stays pretty faithful to the original story with everything just kicked up a notch for comic situations.

After viewing this film I wound up scratching my head with so many questions of how this thing ever got made in the first place.

Firstly three years before there was a straight dramatic version of The Three Musketeers that starred Walter Abel as D'Artagnan by RKO. That film was well received although it didn't transform Abel into a leading man. Why Darryl Zanuck made another version so soon is beyond me.

Secondly Rudolph Friml wrote a fine operetta of The Three Musketeers in the 20s. The score here by Walter Bulloch and Samuel Pokrass is singularly unmemorable. Who knows why Friml's music wasn't used, but it should have been.

Zanuck had the ideal D'Artagnan on his lot in Tyrone Power. But since Power didn't sing and Don Ameche always got sloppy seconds in roles at Fox, he got the part. Poor Ameche, he tried his best and he even gets into the comic elements of the film, but it's no good.

At year 2004 very few people know of the Ritz Brothers. They were good burlesque comedians who Zanuck signed up. Their humor was of The Three Stooges variety, but each stooge had an individual personality. You can't tell one Ritz from the other. In the film they take the place of the real Athos, Porthos, and Aramis and they and Ameche bungle their way into one situation after another.

Of the women in the cast I have to say that Binnie Barnes as Milady DeWinter gets into the spirit of the slapstick with the Ritzes.

It's a mess this film, but more so when you think that a straight musical with the Friml score could have been done and now probably never will and a version with Ty Power as D'Artagnan would have been a classic.

The renowned late British film historian Leslie Halliwell includes this film in his book " Halliwells hundred" as one of the funniest and under-appreciated musical spoofs in his long film going experience...this prompted me to take a look at it , and indeed it IS funny and it makes one wonder why the Ritz brothers are now all but forgotten by the general public(well, that shouldn't surprise anyone, as the "general" public has the memory of a fruit-fly when it comes to classic cinema...) and their contemporaries the 3 stooges are still so over-appreciated and all over the place....cults are strange things and often owe more to snobbish "in-the-know"-isms than real talent.... Nevertheless....the other review of this movie on this site seems to be a little besides the point....this is a bit of fluff, but it's Great fluff, made with style and often more straightforward and to the point than other more pompous versions of this old yarn...relax and enjoy it : its entertainment...as light and pleasant as a summers breeze, as funny as your self-important uncle falling face down in a cream pie! And oh yes, I DO know Friml's score for " the 3 musketeers"...it COULD have been used yes, but boy would it have been BORING!