At Sword’s Point [Sons of the Musketeers] *** (1952, Cornel Wilde, Maureen O’Hara, Robert Douglas, Gladys Cooper, Dan O’Herlihy Alan Hale Jr) – Classic Movie Review 8830

Sons of the Musketeers, yes, and daughter of the Musketeers too! Who could ignore Maureen O’Hara with her hair and lips painted extra red by the blazing Technicolor as Claire, daughter of Athos?

Energetic junior swashbucklers Cornel Wilde as D’Artagnan Jr, Dan O’Herlihy as Aramis Jr and Alan Hale Jr as Porthos Jr are all for one and one for all in the 1952 At Sword’s Point [Sons of the Musketeers], director Lewis Allen’s lively and likeable offspring of The Three Musketeers, which takes up where the Alexandre Dumas story left off in a new story by Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen.

In 1648 France, the French royal Queen Anne (Gladys Cooper) calls in the children of the original musketeers (who are apparently now too old for derring-do) to help her against wicked duke Duc de Lavalle (Robert Douglas), who is plotting to seize power with the new king, Young Louis XIV (Peter Miles), a minor after the death of Louis XIII.

There is perhaps nothing new here, but nevertheless it is well done and the direction is pacey. Years of cosmetic surgery followed filming in 1949 to improve the apparently messy script and direction. Though it was completed in 1949, it remained unreleased until 4 February 1952.

Moroni Olsen reprises his Porthos role from the 1935 The Three Musketeers. Olson also appeared as The Bailiff in The Ritz Brothers’ version, The Three Musketeers (1939) and plays old Porthos in The Fifth Musketeer (1979).

Alan Hale Jr plays the son of Porthos but his father, Alan Hale Sr, appeared in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) as an aging Porthos. When The Man in the Iron Mask was remade as The Fifth Musketeer (1979), the aging Porthos was played by Alan Hale Jr and an aging D’Artagnan was played by Cornel Wilde, son of D’Artagnan here.

Also in the cast are Blanche Yurka, Nancy Gates, June Clayworth, Edmund Breon, Peter Miles, George Petrie, Holmes Herbert, Fred Kohler Jr, Lucien Littlefield, Julia Dean and Tristram Coffin.

At Sword’s Point [Sons of the Musketeers] is directed by Lewis Allen, runs 82 minutes, is made and released by RKO Radio Pictures, is written by Walter Ferris and Joseph Hoffman, based on a story by Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen, is shot in Technicolor by Ray Rennahan, is produced by Sid Rogell (executive producer) and Jerrold T Brandt, is scored by Roy Webb, and is designed by Albert S D’Agostino and Jack Okey.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8830

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