Story of movie The Three Musketeers 1933 Serial : The Three Musketeers is a 1933 American Pre-Code film serial directed by Armand Schaeffer and Colbert Clark and produced by Mascot Pictures. It was loosely based on Dumas' novel The Three Musketeers, with the musketeers becoming three soldiers in the French Foreign Legion, and d'Artagnan being reconfigured as Lt. Tom Wayne (played by John Wayne), a pilot in the United States military. Raymond Hatton, Francis X. Bushman, Jr. and Jack Mulhall play the three soldiers. In 1946, Favorite Films Corporation edited the serial into a feature film called Desert Command.
| The Three Musketeers | |
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The Three Musketeers title sequence screenshot | |
| Directed by |
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| Produced by | Nat Levine |
| Written by |
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| Starring |
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| Music by | Lee Zahler |
| Edited by | Ray Snyder |
| Distributed by | Mascot Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 12 chapters (210 min), film (96 min) |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Screenplay
In the deserts of Northern Africa, Lt. Wayne is framed for the murder Armand Corday (Lon Chaney, Jr., billed as Creighton Chaney), the brother of his fiancé (Ruth Hall), and vows to capture the real killer, a mysterious Arab terrorist known only as El Shaitan. He is aided by three bumptious legionnaires: Clancy (an Irishman always spoiling for a fight), Renard (a wily Frenchman), and Schmidt (a German who loves sausages). Nicknamed the "Devil of the Desert", El Shaitan leads a desert cult and a secret society against French authorities, with a meeting point called the Devil's Circle. He remains a shadowy figure, hiding his face and his true identity, as a result of which many people are mistakenly suspected of being El Shaitan, while other characters impersonate him for their own ends.
- John Wayne as Tom Wayne
- Ruth Hall as Elaine Corday
- Jack Mulhall as Clancy
- Raymond Hatton as Renard
- Francis X. Bushman, Jr. (Ralph Bushman) as Schmidt
- Noah Beery, Jr. as Stubbs
- Al Ferguson as Ali, chief henchman
- Hooper Atchley as El Kadur
- George Magrill as El Maghreb
- Edward Peil, Sr. as Ratkin
- Gordon de Main as Colonel Duval
- William Desmond as Captain Boncour
- Robert Warwick as Colonel Brent
- Creighton Chaney (Lon Chaney, Jr.) as Armand Corday
- Robert Frazer as Major Booth. Frazer played both the masked El Shaitan and Major Booth but, once unmasked, El Shaitan's identity turned out to be one of the other suspects. Cline considers this "all quite confusing."
The Three Musketeers was loosely adapted from the novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, père and updated to a contemporary time period. The Three Musketeers are legionnaires in the French Foreign Legion: Clancy (Irish), Renard (French) and Schmidt (German). The d'Artagnan character is Tom Wayne, an American aviator played by John Wayne, who rescues the three from attacking Arabs while flying over the desert.
Source:
- John Wayne filmography
- List of film serials
- List of film serials by studio
- List of films in the public domain in the United States
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