Three Musketeers, The (1948)

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Director: George Sidney

Starring: Gene Kelly, Lana Turner, Van Heflin, June Allyson

Here is a glamorous motion picture that nearly has it all. A shimmering Technicolor spectacle complete with swashbuckling adventure, romance, the glitz of Hollywood showmanship, and bright Hollywood stars adapting one of best known tales of classic storytelling all packed within one motion picture produced by the biggest movie studio in the industry. However, it also is a feature that may be all show and very little substance. This is 1948’s The Three Musketeers, a jumbled film that contains all the glamour and prestige one would want from big name feature of the 1940s, but lacks the heart that makes a movie captivating, leaving a lack of suspense or emotional gravitas anticipated from such a feature.

The Three Musketeers is an adventure-romance of a young man who joins an elite group of soldiers that fight to protect France from a plot to disgrace its King and Queen. The skilled and scrappy D’Artagnan (Gene Kelly) joins the a trio of the elite King’s musketeers, Athos (Van Heflin), Pothos (Gig Young), and Aramis (Robert Cooke) as a cadet to help save Queen Anne (Angela Lansbury) from a plot concocted by the secretly fiendish Prime Minister Richelieu (Vincent Price). With the aide of Milady De Winter (Lana Turner), Athos’ beautiful yet long separated treacherous wife, Richelieu plots to disgrace the Queen by entrapping her in a affair with the Prime Minister of England, France’s moral enemy, politically ruin the Queen and her husband King Louis XIII (Frank Morgan). D’Artagnan with the Musketeers use their skill and cunning the thwart de Winter, but not before D’Artagnan loses his beloved Constance (June Allyson) along his adventure. In the end our heroes save France cleverly using Richelieu’s power against him to earn themselves honors and rewards, including D’Artagnan finally being commissioned as a Musketeer.

With the picture being a veritable feast for the eyes and embodying what appears to everything grand about the movies of this classic age of Hollywood, The Three Musketeers is a bit of a mess as a motion picture, faltering primarily in story and editing. A lavish Technicolor spectacle evoking the charm and wonder of a literary classic in the adventurous romantic past French setting, the film tries to do too much in the confined length of a normal two hour feature. Its result is a movie that suffers from pacing, quick and random swings in tones, and a story that is extremely difficult to become attached to or even follow at times.

On the whole The Three Musketeers evokes the swashbuckling adventures that made motion pictures so well received in early 20^th century popular culture. The film is a massive prestige picture for MGM, but it feels it was assembled as if the studio was working under an unwatched automatic mode setting. Headed by director George Sidney, whose career started him out from studio messenger and  working his way up to a feature director, is allowed to use all the greatest budget great skills that MGM has to offer. With the finest of cameras, film stock, stars, elegant production designing, costumes, a lavish back lot to shoot on, and even location shooting in beautifully green spaces of Southern California, the film feels as if assembled from a veritable buffet of a filmmaking smorgasbord. Sadly that would not give the feature heart.

Star Gene Kelly embodies the the very nature of the heroes that would be considered cliché many years down the road. His handsome good looks are likened to Errol Flynn with a smile and athleticism of Douglas Fairbanks, Kelly’s style here personifies the classic swashbuckling star. His dancing background easily allowed him to slide right into the role, replacing his dancing shoes on his feet it was a fencing sword in his hand as he finesses and bounds throughout his multiple action scenes. On occasions Kelly would bow out to the performance of his stunt double due to an ankle injury, the same one that would keep him from staring in the lavish MGM musical The Easter Parade. Even limited from his full skill Kelly remains the all around star of the feature that shines with the eternal of heroes, perhaps even to a sickening truest sense. He does provide moments of levity in random scenes of comedy where Kelly displays his charm and a bit of hamming it up for the audience as breaks for this massive period piece that takes itself very seriously.

Lana Turner is surprisingly given top billing in this feature, no doubt because she was the biggest name in the cast. However, in this feature her role as Lady de Winter feels to neither the main villain, nor the chief love interest. Her performance is rather lackluster, more serving her as yet another film that capitalizes on her sex appeal than her acting ability.  The real love story in the film is between A’Dartagnan and a confidant of the Queen, Constance, played by rising starlet June Allyson. Briefly appearing as the Queen is a young Angela Lansbury, carrying the role with dignity, even though she was the youngest of the three main actresses in the film. Also featured in the picture is Frank Morgan, the Wizard of Oz himself, as King Louis XIII, as a slightly foppish version of the monarch.

Vincent Price is presented as the primary villain of the picture in the role of Prime Minister Richelieu, the politician who is secretly attempting to gain power by creating controversy amount the monarchy. Scholars of the Alexandre Dumas story may realize that Richelieu in the novel was a Cardinal, but in this motion picture adaption the character saw his position changed in order for the studio to dodge controversy with Catholic Church who still carried a moral influence on general audiences at the time. Price’s performance comes off as evil, yet not menacing, a fact hindered by how the character was written as a politician instead of an all powerful and influential religious figure.

The film is beautifully shot in glorious Technicolor, showcasing the lavish costumes, the fanciful setting created on the famed MGM backlots and beautifully manicured parks of the Los Angeles area standing in for the French countryside. Also shot well were the action sequences, the sword fighting, stunt work, and even battles on horseback all done in a timeless Hollywood fashion. However all that said the film fails in to capture the imagination as the story is presented in what can be considered a hurried muddled mess.

Previous adaptions of The Three Musketeers took the rather sizable story and would focus on only the first part of the Dumas novel. However, this film attempts to showcase the full story, leaving many scenes feeling hurried to deliver the necessary plot points, but not enough for the audience to become attached to the characters and the story. Because of this the tone of the story changes quickly, grand points such as the war between the English and the French are glanced over, and characters appear to have mood swings without much build.

Van Heflin’s performance as Athos as a jaded soldier who is to be the leader of the trio of Kingsmen feels lacking as a character who was intended to have a massive arch in the overall story. What we get from Heflin is a deconstructed character that is a drunk more often than not making jokes at others expense, but suddenly has a deep emotional turn when he sees his wife, Lady de Winter, whom he still loves despite not building up enough of their relationship for the audience to understand.

All these “flaws” being observed can are in hindsight as when the picture premiered in October of 1948 The Three Musketeers was a massive hit amongst audiences. It is easy to understand why, because the film had massive appeal. It was the greatest box office draw for MGM that year and would even receive an Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography (for a color feature). Critics were generaly kind to the feature, but those not influenced by the massive media market observed the same faults with plotting and execution of the Musketeer story. Of course, The Three Musketeers would be adapted many times over in the coming decades since this version, in forms of numerous feature films, animated pictures, and even made for television movies. This so happened to be the first color version of the story and would create much of the fond imagery many may picture when they think of the Three Musketeer story. In the end the film is rather forgettable, sad but true for a film that contains a visually stunning color palette as the movie simply plain lacks the awe inspiring soul the adventure calls for.