The Three Musketeers (1933)

My Review

“The Three Musketeers” is the story of three friends who enlist in the French Foreign Legion, with John Wayne in the d’Artagnan role as a U. S. military pilot. Directors Colbert Clark and Armand Schaeffer originally put together this film as a twelve-part serial (at a total 210 minute running time) and later a film (96 minutes). In 1946, the entire project was re-edited and re-released as a 60 minute movie called “Desert Command.” All told, this entire project was a second rate, even for a B-movie. It has bad acting, terrible production values, and a lousy script penned by Norman Hall, Ben Cohn, Wyndham Gittens, and Colbert Clark. Of course, it was adapted from the 1844 novel of the same name by Alexandre Dumas.

The stars include Francis X. Bushman Jr., Raymond Halton, and Jack Mulhall as the three Musketeers, John Wayne as Lt. Tom Wayne, Lon Chaney Jr. as their commanding officer, Ruth Hall as his sister and Wayne’s love interest, Noah Berry Jr. as Wayne’s co-pilot, and Al Ferguson as the heavy of the piece. “The Three Musketeers” was popular escapist entertainment at the Depression Era box office for producer Nat Levine and Mascot Pictures Corporation. It was filmed in Griffith Park in Los Angeles and Imperial County, California, and Yuma, Arizona.