The Three Musketeers ** (1935, Walter Abel, Paul Lukas, Moroni Olson, Onslow Stevens, Nigel de Brulier) – Classic Movie Review 2306

Co-writer/director Rowland V Lee’s flat, unexciting 1935 American movie version of the Alexandre Dumas adventure classic tale is the first sound remake of the 1921 Douglas Fairbanks Sr silent movie masterpiece.

The direction is unimaginative, the pace slack, the tone uncertain and the production mediocre, with a miscast Walter Abel none too able as the young Gascon D’Artagnan, who arrives in Paris set on joining the king’s Musketeers. Paul Lukas as Athos, Moroni Olson as Porthos and Onslow Stevens as Aramis are the three Musketeers who befriend him.

Apart from Abel, most of the performances are entirely workmanlike, though Nigel de Brulier is outstanding, re-creating his excellently devilish turn as Cardinal Richelieu, which he also portrayed in the 1921 film and in Fairbanks’s follow-up The Iron Mask (1929).

Margot Grahame is Milady de Winter, Heather Angel is Constance, Ian Keith is the Conte de Rochefort, John Qualen is Planchet, Ralph Forbes is the Duke of Buckingham and Miles Mander is King Louis XIII.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2306

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Walter Abel plays the young Gascon D’Artagnan and Margot Grahame is Milady de Winter.

Walter Abel plays the young Gascon D’Artagnan.

Paul Lukas plays Athos.