Film Review
Max Linder gets his swash well and truly buckled in this outlandish
parody of Alexandre Dumas's
The
Three Musketeers. Actually, it's probably more accurate to
describe it as a spoof of Fred Niblo's 1921 adaptation of the novel,
with Linder getting away with the most merciless (and hilarious) send
up of Douglas Fairbanks you can imagine. (Fairbanks apparently
loved the film.) The plot goes somewhat A.W.O.L. around the
mid-point and the film ends up as a rapid succession of marvellously
executed comedy set-pieces, which actually get funnier on repeated
viewings. No anachronism is left unturned as Linder's manic
humour goes into overdrive, with typewriters, telephones and the odd
motor-vehicle 'accidentally' slipping into the frame.
We may quibble about the title
The
Three Must-Get-Theres - surely it should have been
The Three Must-Get-Theirs? - but
everything else about the film is perfect, including Linder's
surprisingly accomplished swordsmanship. The fight scenes are not
only funny they are exceptionally well choreographed (Max never did
anything by halves), and arguably better than those in Niblo's
film. Linder's desperate attempts to get his stubborn,
cow-fancying horse to Paris take up most of the first reel, but once we
are in Paris things take off with a vengeance and the gags come so fast
you can hardly keep up. Cardinal Richelieu is recast as a
Blofeld-like baddie, but instead of a cat he gets to stroke the balding
head of a dutiful monk, in a way that is indefinably creepy. When our
hero faces certain doom, surrounded by about a dozen of his enemies, he
casually ducks and naturally they end up stabbing each other - the gag
could only have worked with a Busby Berkeley-like ceiling shot (could
Berkeley have been inspired by this film?)
A riotous comedy masterpiece,
The
Three Must-Get-Theres should have been the film that made
Linder a massive Hollywood star, but like his two previous American
features,
Seven Years Bad Luck (1921) and
Be My Wife (1921), it was
ill-received and failed to make a decent return at the box
office. Disheartened by yet another failure, and convinced that
he had lost the art of being funny, Linder returned to France, where he
was persuaded to appear in the short film
Au
secours! (1924) before heading off to Vienna to make his
final film,
The King of the Circus
(1925). Within a decade of his death in 1925, the comedy
giant that had been cinema's first superstar and had once made the
world roar with laughter would be forgotten.
© James Travers 2015
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.
Next Max Linder film:
Max victime du quinquina (1911)
Film Synopsis
France, 1625. Dart-In-Again is a young man with high hopes of
becoming a musketeer in the service of King Louis XIII, but the king
already has three perfectly able musketeers - Walrus, Octopus and
Porpoise - and one more might be considered
de trop. Dart-In-Again soon
proves his worth, however, by foiling a scheme by the dastardly Li'l
Cardinal Richie-Loo to discredit the Queen and make himself even more
powerful. Along the way, he wins the heart of the lovely
Constance Bonne-aux-Fieux and learns that the sword is definitely
mightier than the pen...
© James Travers
The above content is owned by filmsdefrance.com and must not be copied.