The Three Musketeers (1921 film)

The Three Musketeers is a 1921 American silent film based on the 1844 novel The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas, père. It was directed by Fred Niblo and stars Douglas Fairbanks as d'Artagnan. The film originally had scenes filmed in the Handschiegl Color Process (billed as the "Wyckoff-DeMille Process").[2] The film had a sequel, The Iron Mask (1929), also starring Fairbanks as d'Artagnan and DeBrulier as Cardinal Richelieu.

The Three Musketeers
Léon Bary, Eugene Pallette,
Douglas Fairbanks and George Siegmann
Directed byFred Niblo
Written byEdward Knoblock (adaptation)
Douglas Fairbanks
Lotta Woods (screenplay)
Based onThe Three Musketeers
1844 novel
by Alexandre Dumas
Produced byDouglas Fairbanks
StarringDouglas Fairbanks
Leon Bary
George Siegmann
Eugene Pallette
Boyd Irwin
Marguerite De La Motte
CinematographyArthur Edeson
Edited byNellie Mason
Music byLouis F. Gottschalk
Distributed byUnited Artists
Release date
  • August 28, 1921 (1921-08-28)
Running time
120 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguagesSilent film
English intertitles
Box office$1.5 million[1]

Plot summary

Cast
In opening credits order:

Production

The athletic Douglas Fairbanks's one-handed handspring to grab a sword during a fight scene in this film is considered one of the great stunts of the early cinema period. Fairbanks biographer Jeffrey Vance enthuses, "The Three Musketeers was the first of the grand Fairbanks costume films, filled with exemplary production values and ornamentation. Indeed, one ornament extended beyond the film: Fairbanks wore d'Artagnan's moustache—cultivated for The Three Musketeers—to the end of his life. With The Three Musketeers, he at last found his metier and crystallized his celebrity and his cinema."[3]

Preservation status

In April 1939, Fairbanks donated his entire film collection to the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), including both a 35mm nitrate negative and a tinted positive print. The negative was duplicated in 1963, and this print was used for the restoration completed in May 2017 by MoMA, the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, and Film Preservation Society. MoMA and Image Protection Services also finished a color restoration in February 2021.[4]

See also

References
  1. Balio, Tino (2009). United Artists: The Company Built by the Stars. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 42. ISBN 978-0-299-23004-3.
  2. "The Three Musketeers". Silent Era. Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. 2015. Retrieved September 22, 2015.
  3. Vance, Jeffrey (2008). Douglas Fairbanks. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. p. 105. ISBN 978-0520256675.
  4. Preamble to a restoration.
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