The Three Musketeers **** (1921, Douglas Fairbanks Sr, Adolphe Menjou, Mary MacLaren, Nigel De Brulier, Marguerite De La Motte) – Classic Movie Review 881

Douglas Fairbanks Sr’s 1921 silent movie of the Alexandre Dumas Sr adventure classic is deservedly renowned and celebrated.

Director Fred Niblo’s marvellous, meticulous production is colourful, exuberant and appealing, with an ideally cast Fairbanks Sr on his finest form as young Gascon D’Artagnan, Nigel de Brulier excellently devilish as Cardinal Richelieu, and Adolphe Menjou the other standout as the French King, Louis XIII.

With Leon Bary, George Siegmann and Eugene Palette supporting loyally as Athos, Porthos and Aramis, this is a rousing silent movie highspot that still hits the mark. On the female side, Marguerite De La Motte is Constance, Mary MacLaren is Anne of Austria and Barbara La Marr plays Milady de Winter.

Sequel: The Iron Mask (1929), with many of the same personnel. De Brulier also played Richelieu in The Iron Mask, in Cardinal Richelieu (1935) and in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939).

The Musketeers were real people. Dumas based his characters on  a book by 19th-century writer Courtils de Sandraz that purported to be D’Artagnan’s biography.

© Derek Winnert 2014 Classic Movie Review 881

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