The Three Musketeers – (1921; b/w silent – added score by Louis Gottschalk) “When life was life and men were men” – from the pen of Alexandre Dumas père to the cinematic screen – France of 1625 in the court of King Louis XIII (Adolphe Menjou) with the ambitious, power-hungry Cardinal Richelieu (Nigel De Brulier) using intrigue to remove the remaining obstacle to his domination of the king, Queen Anne of Austria (Mary McLaren). Knowing of the queen’s love for England’s prime minister, the Duke of Buckingham (Thomas Holding), Richelieu sets up a trap, luring the duke to the queen’s chambers by means of a forged letter in order to discredit her. During a game of chess with the king, Richelieu insinuates: “Your queen is in danger, menaced by a knight.” Buckingham eludes capture with the queen’s admonishment that he is never to see her again, but she gives him the diamond brooch the king had recently bestowed upon her for a keepsake.

The cardinal has witnessed their meeting and advises the king to request that his queen wear her valuable buckle to the grand ball. Elsewhere D’Artagnan of Gascony takes leave of his father to find his fate in the world, hoping to become one of the king’s Musketeers. His father impresses upon his son to be ever loyal to the king, give reverence to the cardinal, and devote himself to the queen. The feisty, impetuous D’Artagnan also takes to heart his father’s encouragement that to fight is valorous; he takes offense wherever he travels. This prickliness in personality leads to his picking three duals with the three best swordsmen in France simultaneously in Paris behind the Luxembourg. When Athos (Leon Barry), Porthos (George Siegmann), and Aramis (Eugene Pallette) all meet to fight with D’Artagnan, their dual is interrupted by five of the cardinal’s guards who attempt to arrest the three Musketeers and their companion for breaking the king’s edict against sword fighting.

The Musketeers and D’Artagnan defeat the guards, and the new arrival receives their welcome as well as a reward of gold from the king. Upon his first arriving in Paris, D’Artagnan traded in his horse for a fancy hat and made acquaintance with Constance at her uncle’s lodgings where D’Artagnan takes a room. Unbeknownst to D’Artagnan, Constance Bonacieux (Marguerite De La Motte) is the queen’s seamstress and trusted messenger between the royal and Buckingham. Constance requests D’Artagnan to go to England to recover the jewels from the duke before the grand ball. The captain of the Musketeers assigns all four to the mission, expecting one may succeed if four try. Thus, it’s “One for all and all for one.” Tolls must be paid to Richelieu’s men along the way. D’Artagnan reaches England alone, but Richelieu’s spy, Milady de Winter, has already stolen the brooch from the duke’s person. D’Artagnan pursues her onto the ship back to France where he must retrieve the gems and somehow elude the defenses Richelieu has set up to prevent D’Artagnan’s saving the queen from an embarrassment that would cost her honor and life. The adventure is frequently lightened with genuine comedy.

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Copyright © 2007 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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