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52-week film challenge, film 19

This 1939 version was a musical comedy version that, despite that terrible idea, actually sticks pretty close to the book for as far as it goes — which really surprised me. I have a lot of time for Don Ameche, the star of this version, and he is one of the best things in it, taking the role seriously while never wiping the smile from his face as he plays the headstrong but skilled D’Artagnon, who hopes to join the King’s Musketeers.

In this telling of the tale, D’Artagnon mostly misses the actual Three Musketeers, who appear only briefly. The trio gets passed-out drunk drinking toasts at an inn to the various King Louises, because there are so damn many of them, and the scullery cooks (played by the all-mugging, all-singing, all-pratfalling Ritz Brothers) try on the Muskateers’ outfits and then get mistaken by D’Artagnon for the real Musketeers, and of course from there mischief ensues from all parties.

The success of this film depends very, very, very, very heavily on your tolerance of The Ritz Brothers, who were a vaudeville act that transitioned pretty successfully to film on the strength of being a mix between The Three Stooges and three Chicos from The Marx Brothers. They’re not in any way witty, but they can mug and clown (and also comedically sing and dance) with the best of ‘em.

Their schtick, in my opinion, hasn’t aged well — but I cannot argue with the fact that they enjoyed a successful career in various forms of show business (though the fact that they got forgotten pretty quickly afterwards may prove me right about them). The film also relies way too heavily on D’Artagnon somehow not seeing the Ritz Brothers’ utter incompetence as pretend Musketeers, which of course he doesn’t since they only end up in his view by accident throughout the film at points where they have been (accidentally-comedically) useful to him.

Ameche handles a sword well, sings in a pleasing tenor, and is handsome enough to pull off the romantic scenes. The Ritz “Musketeers” keep getting pulled in by D’Artagnon’s delusion that they are real Musketeers, but they do aid in his success in the complicated (yet truncated) plot of this brief 73-minute film.

If you don’t know the story, read the book, or watch one of the later, more dramatic film or TV versions. Suffice to say Cardinal Richelieu was a very bad man who manipulated royalty both in France and England, and was foiled (ha!) by the Musketeers. The plot works well in this film, it’s just the comedy and the musical bits that fall flat.

First of all, there are only four songs in this “musical,” none of them that good, and the two for Don Ameche sound pretty similar to these ears, though he turns his “on the road” song into a love song later on pretty well. The two Ritz Brothers songs (one of which extols the virtues of chicken soup) are meant to be comedic but seem quite laboured to me.

Near the end of the film, the brothers contribute their best bit: a pie-plate dance that’s actually well-done and quite clever, meant to cover any sound D’Artagnon makes while freeing Lady Constance from the dungeon below the aristocrats they are working against. I should mention that the chase scenes, while regrettably sped up as was the custom of the time, are really well-done and focus on the hardworking horses.

The whole film is well-shot but still somehow kind of cheap-looking (just like The Ritz Brothers, insert rimshot here). I did recognise Lionel Atwill as de Rochefort, but only realized the near-immortal John Carradine was in this (as Naveau) when the credits rolled. I’m giving this a star for the cinematography, a half-star for Don Ameche, and another half-star for the pie-plate dance, and still looking for whatever version I thought was great when I was like nine or so.