The Three Musketeers (1939)

Director:

Allan Dwan

Writers:

Alexandre Dumas père (novel)
M.M. Musselman (screenplay) ...

Release Date:

17 February 1939 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Comedy | Musical

Plot:

D'Artagnan sings and fronts for slapstick cowardly Ritz brothers posing as musketeers.

Plot Keywords:

Musketeer | Cardinal Richelieu | King | Tavern | False Accusation

Cast

Don Ameche	...	D'Artagnan
The Ritz Brothers	...	Three Lackeys
Binnie Barnes	...	Milady De Winter
Gloria Stuart	...	Queen Anne
Pauline Moore	...	Lady Constance
Joseph Schildkraut	...	King Louis XIII
John Carradine	...	Naveau
Lionel Atwill	...	De Rochefort
Miles Mander	...	Cardinal Richelieu
Douglass Dumbrille	...	Athos (as Douglas Dumbrille)
John 'Dusty' King	...	Aramis (as John King)
Russell Hicks	...	Porthos
Gregory Gaye	...	Vitray
Lester Matthews	...	Duke of Buckingham
Egon Brecher	...	Landlord

Also Known As:

The Singing Musketeer (UK)

Runtime:

73 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Mirrophonic Recording)

Certification:

USA:Approved (PCA #4766) | USA:TV-G (TV rating) | Finland:S

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Goofs:

Anachronisms: During the scene where horsemen are chasing a carriage containing Milady and D'Artagnan along a country road, an electric power substation can briefly be seen in the background.

Quotes:

D'Artagnan: She's a walking post office.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Leave It to Beaver: The Book Report (#6.30)" (1963)

Soundtrack:

Voila

One of the strangest musicals ever

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.