Hot Picks

- Ready for My Close Up 2019

- Talk of the Dead 2016

- Bittertooth 2023

- 4 Minutes of Terror: Night Slasher 2024

- Apart 2024

- The Abandoned 2006

- Becky 2024

- The Evil Fairy Queen 2024

- The Black Guelph 2022

- Followers 2024

- Silence of the Prey 2024

- Battle for the Western Front 2024

- Beware the Boogeyman 2024

- Subject 101 2022

- Driftwood 2023

- The Legend of Lake Hollow 2024

- Black Mass 2023

- Skinwalkers: American Werewolves 2 2023

- The Manifestation 2024

- Spirit Riser 2024

- Garden of Souls 2019

- It's a Wonderful Slice 2024

- Caleb & Sarah 2024

- The Thousand Steps 2020

- The Desiring 2021

- When a Stranger Knocks 2024

- Quint-essentially Irish 2024

- Son of Gacy 2024

- Saltville 2024

- The True Story of the Christ's Return 2024

- Whenever I'm Alone with You 2023

- Jurassic Triangle 2024

- Midnight Peepshow 2022

- Offworld: Alien Planet 2024

- The Swiss Conspiracy 1976

- Sex-Positive 2024

- Here for Blood 2022

- All Over Again 2024

- The Color Yellow 2023

- Des Töchterleins Leid 2024

- I Am a Channel 2024

- The Hermits 2023

- Murdaritaville 2024

- Inheritance 2024

- The Devil's Partner 1960

- A Stranger in the Woods 2024

- Underground 2023

- A Nashville Wish 2024

- molkipolki 2023

- The Ghost is a Lie - Take Two 2024

- Return to the Theatre of Terror 2023

- The Ghost is a Lie - Take One 2023

- First Impressions Can Kill 2017

- A Killer Conversation 2014

- Star Crash 1979

- Strangler of the Swamp 1946

The Three Musketeers

USA 1948
produced by
Pandro S. Berman for MGM
directed by George Sidney
starring Gene Kelly, Lana Turner, June Allyson, Van Heflin, Vincent Price, Angela Lansbury, Gig Young, Robert Coote, Keenan Wynn, John Sutton, Frank Morgan, Reginald Owen, Ian Keith, Patricia Medina, Richard Stapley (= Richard Wyler), Dick Simmons, Robert Warwick, Byron Foulger, Kirk Alyn, Sol Gorss, Tom Tyler, Norman Leavitt, Alberto Morin, Ruth Robinson
screenplay by Robert Ardrey, based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas père, music by Herbert Stothart

Three Musketeers

review by
Mike Haberfelner

Quick Links

Abbott & Costello

The Addams Family

Alice in Wonderland

Arsène Lupin

Batman

Bigfoot

Black Emanuelle

Bomba the Jungle Boy

Bowery Boys

Bulldog Drummond

Captain America

Charlie Chan

Cinderella

Deerslayer

Dick Tracy

Dr. Mabuse

Dr. Orloff

Doctor Who

Dracula

Edgar Wallace made in Germany

Elizabeth Bathory

Emmanuelle

Fantomas

Flash Gordon

Frankenstein

Frankie & Annette Beach Party movies

Freddy Krueger

Fu Manchu

Fuzzy

Gamera

Godzilla

Hercules

El Hombre Lobo

Incredible Hulk

Jack the Ripper

James Bond

Jekyll and Hyde

Jerry Cotton

Jungle Jim

Justine

Kekko Kamen

King Kong

Laurel and Hardy

Lemmy Caution

Lobo

Lone Wolf and Cub

Lupin III

Maciste

Marx Brothers

Miss Marple

Mr. Moto

Mister Wong

Mothra

The Munsters

Nick Carter

OSS 117

Phantom of the Opera

Philip Marlowe

Philo Vance

Quatermass

Robin Hood

The Saint

Santa Claus

El Santo

Schoolgirl Report

The Shadow

Sherlock Holmes

Spider-Man

Star Trek

Sukeban Deka

Superman

Tarzan

Three Mesquiteers

Three Musketeers

Three Stooges

Three Supermen

Winnetou

Wizard of Oz

Wolf Man

Wonder Woman

Yojimbo

Zatoichi

Zorro

Available on DVD!

To buy, click on link(s) below and help keep this site afloat (commissions earned)

Always make sure of DVD-compatibility!!!


You are probably familiar with the plot of this already, but I'm recounting it anyways:

France, 1925: D'Artagnan (Gene Kelly), a hot-headed countryboy, comes to Paris because he wants to become a Musketeer - and after proving his skills alongside the King's (Frank Morgan) three best fighters - Athos (Van Heflin), Porthos (Gig Young), and Aramis (Robert Coote) -, he becomes not only that but these three Musketeers best friend and ally.

Soon, the Queen (Angela Lansbury) is in dire need of the Musketeers, because she has given a priceless set of diamonds to her lover, British prime minister Buckingham (John Sutton), but now she's supposed to wear the jewels on an official occasion - something that was suggested by the Cardinal Richelieu (Vincent Price), her fiercest adversary and an all-around baddie. It's a race against time for the three Musketeers and D'Artagnan to England to retrieve the stones, and along the way, D'Artagnan loses his friends - but somehow makes it. There is another problem though, the set of jewels in Buckingham's possession is no longer complete, two were stolen by his seductive mistress, the Mylady de Winter (Lana Turner), a close ally of Richelieu, who wants to make sure his plan doesn't fail. However, Buckingham has the stones replaced by his jeweller, and ultimately, D'Artagnan makes it back to Paris and the King's palace just in time to hand over the now complete set of jewels to the Queen and have Richelieu's plan blow up in his own face.

Richelieu doesn't like it one bit that D'Artagnan has made him lose face, so he has his men arrest D'Artagnan's girlfriend Constance (June Allyson), then humiliates him by suggesting he should become a member of his guard. D'artagnan knows Richelieu is trying to play a dirty trick, so he tries to delay everything as long as possible, then woos Mylady de Winter, and when he learns she's madly in love with a man he killed out of necessity (Dick Simmons), he pretend to be that man for a night of sin. When she finds out, she's nothing short of infuriated.

Somehow, Constance is released from captivity, and to keep her out of harm's way, D'Artagnan sends her to England to be watched over by Buckingham - who soon enough starts a little war on France to keep Richelieu's men from following her. Mylady de Winter however manages to cross the Channel, with the express purpose to kill Buckingham, but D'Artagnan's servant Planchet (Keenan Wynn) follows on her heels, and ultimately sees to it that she is thrown into a British jail, with Constance being made her jailer. When D'Artagnan and Athos, who has once been married to the Mylady, learn about this, they rush to Constance's aid, but alas to late, the Mylady has already killed both Constance and Buckingham, and it's only with luck that D'Artagnan and Athos manage to escape themselves.

In France, D'Artagnan and the three Musketeers manage to track down Mylady de Winter, and they have her executed - which seems to play right into the hand of Richelieu, who figures he can have themn court-martialed for the execution ... but not so, because D'Artagnan has a document in his possession that gave the Mylady virtually a carte blanche to kill Buckingham, and that's signed by ... Richelieu.

 

Basically, the film falls in two halves:

The first part about the retrieval of the jewels is without a doubt Gene Kelly's showcase - as a great dancer with acrobatic skills, he makes a wonderfully agile D'Artagnan, and he's featured in quite a number of impressive fights and imaginative stunts ... so even if the swashbuckler wasn't necessarily something he was known for, he proves to be perfectly cast.

Lana Turner is also perfectly cast as Mylady de Winter, who dominates the second half of the film, as she is able to play the role with all the seductiveness and cruelty the role demands ... but unfortunately, she is not given nearly as much screentime as Gene Kelly in the first half to make the second half her own, and her half is marred by choppy writing and quite a few plotholes.

As a result, the film falls into two halves in more ways than one, not only narratively but also in mood and quality: While the first half is a light-footed swashbuckling adventure, half number two is a serious and actually a bit depressing historical drama - and director George Sidney feels much more at home in the first half, basically because he has a background as a musical director and always tended to favour the physical aspects of his filmsover the dramatic undercurrents.

In all, this is still a fun Three Musketeers adaptation, but maybe the second half could have done with some rewrites and a bit of trimming.

 

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

Feeling lucky?
Want to
search
any of my partnershops yourself
for more, better results?
(commissions earned)

The links below
will take you
just there!!!

Find The Three Musketeers
at the amazons ...

USA  amazon.com

Great Britain (a.k.a. the United Kingdom)  amazon.co.uk

Germany (East AND West)  amazon.de

Looking for imports?
Find The Three Musketeers here ...

Thailand  eThaiCD.com
Your shop for all things Thai

Something naughty?
(Must be over 18 to go there!)

x-rated  find The Three Musketeers at adultvideouniverse.com


Thanks for watching !!!

 

 

In times of uncertainty of a possible zombie outbreak, a woman has to decide between two men - only one of them's one of the undead.

 

There's No Such Thing as Zombies
starring
Luana Ribeira, Rudy Barrow and Rami Hilmi
special appearances by
Debra Lamb and Lynn Lowry

 

directed by
Eddie Bammeke

written by
Michael Haberfelner

produced by
Michael Haberfelner, Luana Ribeira and Eddie Bammeke

 

now streaming at

Amazon

Amazon UK

Vimeo

 

 

 

Robots and rats,
demons and potholes,
cuddly toys and
shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

is all of that.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to
-
a collection of short stories and mini-plays
ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic
to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle, all thought up by
the twisted mind of
screenwriter and film reviewer
Michael Haberfelner.

 

Tales to Chill
Your Bones to

the new anthology by
Michael Haberfelner

 

Out now from
Amazon!!!