The Three Musketeers (1921)

America's favorite swashbuckling action hero brings you the classic tale of "all for one and one for all." The novel of Alexandre Dumas, père had been produced a quite a bit before Fairbanks would wave the sword of d'Artagnan, both on stage and screen, and it would be far from the last version of this classic tale. Yet this adventuresome story seems to beckon the call of Douglas Fairbanks. For this story would be a perfect place to demonstrate the athleticism of the silent era's greatest action star.

The tale is the classic story of young d'Artagnan (Fairbanks) in 17th century France traveling to Paris to join the famous and honorable king's Musketeers. At first he his rejected, but he continues to do his best to impress the famous swordsmen that protect the crown. Meanwhile Cardinal Richelieu tries to take over France, by overpowering and outsmarting the Queen. In short, almost all the musketeers die in combat, with the exception of the three best: Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. d'Artagnan's bravery and swordplay help save and win over the musketeers trust and invite him to help them in their quest of protecting the crown. As with any Fairbanks film, there is a love story and many physical stunts for him to perform along the way as the musketeers fight and fall one by one, leaving d'Artagnan as the ultimate hero, winning over the Cardinal, the king Louis XIII (Adolphe Menjou) and queen, the girl, and the right to be an official Musketeer.

Of coarse with all adaptations of novels to the screen there are changes, a few here and there, but none as important as the survival of the Musketeers. In the normal tale the three die honorably in combat, and in the film at first it seems that is shown as well, but to suit the happy-ending loving audiences that went out to see Fairbanks' films the three miraculously show up at the end after their apparent deaths. Quite a jarring thing as it seems more artistic that they died doing what they where called on to heroically do, but the filmmakers comprised with the happier decision to see them get up from their lifeless injured bodies and make it through the battle. This would be helpful for Fairbanks, as years later he would make a sequel to the film with The Iron Mask (1929), which would include some of Fairbanks' first recorded words in film (which were nearly lost in time, but thankfully rediscovered and digitized in 1999 to preserve the history of the original film).

With this motion picture we see how Fairbanks (producer and writer as well as star) understood his image on the screen. He produced the picture's sets to fit his needs and make what he did seem as effortless as possible. The step and props were made specially for his size and for the ease in running, jumping, diving, and tumbling. Not that he was not an great athlete. His stunt where he performs a running one-handed spring stand while grabbing after his loose sword is seen as one of the greatest early film stunts, and something you would never see a major star try to attempt today. Fairbanks wanted his stunts to work to the finest detail. And this is a shining case where he performed at high level he became legendary for.