The Three Musketeers

The 1948 "Three Musketeers" is big time, Golden Age Hollywood filmmaking at its best. With big stars, lavish costumes, great sets, and lots of practical stuntwork, this Technicolor gem is as much fun today as it was the day it first screened.

Gene Kelly stars as D'Artagnan in this adaptation, and it's a terrific casting choice. Since filmed swordplay is basically dancing, putting an accomplished dancer in the role allows the fight choreographer to have some fun with his sequences. Kelly leaps, flips, thrusts, and parries with aplomb, convincing us that he is a hell of a swordsman. Combine this with his everyman attitude, and we believe in him as a rube just in from the country. His new comrades (Van Heflin, Gig Young, and Robert Coote) appear to be having a wonderful time, lending the proceedings precisely the devil-may-care attitude they need to capture Dumas's tone.

But you can't have heroes without villains. With Lana Turner as the Lady De Winter and Vincent Price as Cardinal Richelieu, our heroes are up against the very best. It's a pleasure to watch them all do their work.

It doesn't end there, however. Check out the undercard: June Allyson as Constance, Angela Lansbury as Queen Anne, Frank Morgan as King Louis the XIII, and Keenan Wynn as Planchett. Was there anyone sitting in the MGM cafeteria who didn't get roped into this thing?

All those names aren't enough for you, eh? Well, you can always enjoy the pretty pictures. MGM's costumers put some velvet wholesaler's kid through college with this one, with one lavish getup after another. It's wonderful, in that Golden Age way. Similarly, its set designers went to the trouble of getting every little detail just right, even if the location worked screamed "California." (An aside: the Musketeers are riding down a beach along the English Channel. Observed my 8-yr-old, "Hey, isn't that the beach from 'Planet of the Apes'?" That's my boy!)

But the fight scenes are what really sell this movie. I love practical stuntwork, and "The Three Musketeers" features some impressive stunts. You have the standard jumping on and off of horses, which we're used to, by now. But there are a number of multilevel falls that look challenging and authentic, and the swordplay is uniformly terrific.

In other words, the 1948 "The Three Musketeers" is great fun. Thanks again, TCM, for another wonderful presentation.