DON Q, SON OF ZORRO. United Artists, 1925. Douglas Fairbanks, Mary Astor, Jack McDonald, Donald Crisp, Stella De Lanti, Warner Oland, Jean Hersholt. Based on the novel Don Q’s Love Story by Kate Prichard & Hesketh Prichard. Director: Donald Crisp.

   Three Bucks at a local Grocery Store sufficed to deliver unto me a genuine Rarity, Don Q, Son of Zorro. The most enjoyable of Douglas Fairbanks Sr.’s Swashbucklers I’ve seen to date.

   I’ve carped before about the dreadful lack of Pace in Doug’s Costume Pictures, a defect that causes the films to drag even in the midst of some of the most flamboyant and fun-to-watch capering ever committed to the Screen. Don Q, however, harks back to the early knockabout comedies that made Fairbanks’ reputation (along with those of Chaplin, Keaton, et. al.) and spends most of its time indulging Doug in that insouciant showing-off he did so well.

   Hard to believe this fast-paced souffle was directed by none other than Donald Crisp, Hollywood’s resident Patriarch/Wet Blanket in films from How Green Was My Valley to Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

   Crisp elicits neat performances from Warner (Charlie Chan) Oland as a German Prince, Jean (Dr. Christian) Hersholt as a fawning toady, and does a surprisingly neat turn himself in the Young-Basil-Rathbone style as a lecherous cad.

   As for Fairbanks, Crisp manages to indulge him without over-indulging him, and never lets the pace flag for a moment.

   No mean feats, those.

Editorial Comment: This film is, of course, a sequel to The Mark of Zorro (1920), also, as everyone knows, with Douglas Fairbanks, Sr. Out of curiosity, I investigated. The book by the Prichards (a mother and son collaboration) has no connection with Zorro whatsoever.

LORRAINE OF THE LIONS. Universal, 1925. Norman Kerry, Patsy Ruth Miller, Fred Humes, Doreen Turner, Harry Todd, Philo McCullugh, Joseph J. Dowling.

Scenario by Isadore Bernstein & Carl Krusada; screenplay by Isadore Bernstein. Director: Carl Krusada. Shown at Cinevent 42, Columbus OH, May 2010.

   Herewith a feminist Tarzan ripoff that I wouldn’t have missed for anything other than a screening of the sole surviving print of London After Midnight.

   After a storm demolishes the ship bringing Lorraine (Patsy Ruth Miller), her parents, and their jungle circus back from an Australian tour, Lorraine is washed up on a desert island, where she is raised by one of the surviving animals, a gorilla named “Bimi” (played by Fred Humes).

   Years later, her wealthy grandfather; who’s been searching for survivors, enlists the aid of an itinerant psychic (Norman Kerry) who leads a rescue party to the island, returning the initially reluctant Lorraine, along with Bimi, to civilization, represented by her grandfather’s palatial San Francisco mansion.

   The print was excellent, and even though I kept telling myself that this was pure, unadulterated schlock, the kid in me didn’t believe a word of it.

   I would give this an unconditional recommendation for the junior set if it were not for an unfortunate plot turn that involved Bimi and cast a pall over the traditional happy ending.

   Would Tarzan have treated Kala the way Lorraine treated Bimi? I think not.

   I was also bothered by the fact that Kerry and the lead villain both sported the same pencil-thin moustache, were slender in build, and tended to wear what appeared to be the same grey suit.

   Well, what do you expect of a film in which the only real emotional resonance comes from a man in a gorilla suit?

RAMPAGE. Seven Arts/Warner Brothers, 1963. Robert Mitchum, Elsa Martinelli, Jack Hawkins, Sabu. Screenplay: Robert Holt & Marguerite Roberts, based on the novel by Alan Caillou. Director: Phil Karlson.

    Harry Stanton (Robert Mitchum) is the world’s greatest animal trapper. Otto Abbott is the world’s greatest hunter. The Munich Zoo has hired the two of them to go on Shikar (safari) in Malaya to bring back two tigers, and the prize of the expedition … the Enchantress, a legendary leopard with many kills to her name.   [NOTE: See Comment #1.]

   From the first, the laid back Harry is intrigued and repulsed by Otto Abbott. The charming German lives for the kill and for acquisition of trophies — including his beautiful young mistress Anna (Elsa Martinelli), who he displays her as another of his trophies.

    Anna is much younger than Otto. He took her out of an orphanage when she was only fourteen, and he takes some pride in her lovers, her faceless lovers, but Harry is something different — Harry promises to have a face.

   Once in Malaya Otto finds himself playing second fiddle to Harry and he doesn’t like it. The local chief doesn’t like his arrogant ways, and Anna begins to see Harry more and more as a man with a face.

   They capture the first two tigers easily, but Otto alienates the chief and they lose the help of the locals so Harry has to trap the Enchantress with only the help of his trackers led by Sabu (in his next to last film).

   By the time Harry traps the Enchantress in a native temple Anna is in love with him and Otto has faced both his mortality and his courage — broken without a gun to back it up. Otto’s world has been turned upside down and Anna is planning to leave him. Worst of all is Anna’s pity.

   The train reaches Munich and the Enchantress escapes:

   Now Harry and Anna with the Munich police as beaters must stalk the rooftops of the city for the killer cat while Otto hunts them.

   Rampage is a fine old fashioned adventure film based on a novel by adventure writer Alan Caillou. Caillou, in addition to writing such books as Journey to Orassia, Assault on Agathon, and the “Cabot Cain” and “Col. Tobin” series, was a busy character actor whose extensive career included roles in too many television series to count and playing Inspector Lestrade in the 1972 made-for-television The Hound of the Baskervilles and uncredited in The List of Adrian Messenger (Inspector Seymour) and Journey to the Center of the Earth (the Rector). He was a regular on the science fiction comedy series Quark as “the Head” and appeared in the mini series Centennial, and as Fergus in four episodes of My Three Sons.

   Phil Karlson had a long and varied career, directing everything from Kane Richmond as The Shadow to Dean Martin as Matt Helm, but he also helmed fine adventure films like Rampage and the classic film noir Kansas City Confidential.

   Rampage also benefits from a terrific film score by Elmer Bernstein that ably enhances the action and mood and a great song written with Mack David. That and Karlson’s direction, a first rate cast, and literate script raise it far above the simple adventure film it actually is.

   The film ends memorably on an apartment rooftop with Harry trapped between the maddened Enchantress and murderous Otto with a gun.

   This kind of film may seem old hat compared to today’s kinetic CGI ridden action films, but it is nice to watch it and notice the care taken to develop character and relationships.

   The three leads, and even Sabu and his wife and the old chief are deeper and more rounded than many of their contemporaries today in a similar type of film. It’s that level of writing and direction that give this film a little something missing in many modern films.

   The more leisurely style allows the actors room to show a little depth and dimensionality and adds to the tension so when the action does occur it is explosive.

   In short, it’s a movie and not a live action cartoon. Nothing wrong with live action cartoons, but films like Dark Knight, Inception, the Bourne films, and the Daniel Craig Bond’s show that modern audiences can appreciate the deeper characterization and more rounded characters.

   Rampage is a slick smart adventure film that will leave you well satisfied, and what more can you want from an adventure movie? It’s an old fashioned popcorn movie. Get the microwave ready, heat up the butter, and stock up on Junior Mints, this is old time movie making the way it used to be done with style and genuine storytelling skill.

   At the time it was just another good film, but now it is a reminder of the skills once common in movie making.

TARZAN AND THE HUNTRESS. RKO Radio Pictures, 1947. Johnny Weissmuller, Brenda Joyce, Johnny Sheffield, Patricia Morison, Barton MacLane, John Warburton, Charles Trowbridge. Based on characters created by Edgar Rice Burroughs. Director: Kurt Neumann.

   Based on the pages of TV Guide that I torn out and slipped inside the case, I taped this movie from a local station in September 1991, VHS of course. (I don’t know if DVDs were around then or not, but certainly not do-it-yourself recordable ones.) It’s been stored in the basement ever since, and it still plays fine.

   Unfortunately the local station (WTXX in Waterbury) played this late at night and spiced it up every so often with colorful ads for adult services such as 1-900-HOTPINK. Those were the days, my friend.

   Johnny Weissmuller made only one more Tarzan movie, Tarzan and the Mermaids, before he morphed into Jungle Jim, but Brenda Joyce (who followed Maureen O’Sullivan) appeared twice more as Jane, appearing in Tarzan’s Magic Fountain with Lex Barker before calling it quits on her movie-making career. And Johnny Sheffield, growing up before the viewers’ eyes, became Bomba, the Jungle Boy soon after this one, in 1949.

   As “Boy,” though, he may have been getting taller and filling out more, but in Huntress he wasn’t smart enough to realize that trading two lion cubs to some hunters on safari for a flashlight was an altogether too bone-headed of a stunt for him to stay out of Tarzan’s doghouse for very long,

   Of course the members of that same safari, picking up specimens for zoos in the US after the war, aren’t smart nor wise enough to realize that even though they’re not killing animals, crossing Tarzan’s wishes isn’t the smartest thing to do, especially on Tarzan’s home turf.

   The “huntress” in this movie is Tanya Rawlins, played by Patricia Morison, a beautiful brunette who’s nominally in charge of the expedition, but she’s too petite to overrule villain Barton MacLane, who plays her guide. In doing his job far too enthusiastically, for example, he finds it necessary to bump off the local native leader who stands in their way.

   The movie’s 72 minutes long, but it feels longer, even though there’s only about 30 minutes of actual plot to go with it – which probably goes a long way in explaining why it does feel as long as it does. There’s lots of stock animal footage, lots of neat shots of Tarzan swinging from vine to vine, one scene of synchronized swimming, and far too much monkey business. Way too much. I think Cheetah (the chimpanzee) has more screen time in this movie than any of the other actors.

THE MAGIC CARPET. Columbia Pictures, 1951. Lucille Ball, John Agar, Patricia Medina, Raymond Burr, Gregory Gaye, George Tobias, Rick Vallin. Directed by Lew Landers.

    Lucille Ball had to be gnashing at the bit in this low budget Arabian Nights fare with John Agar’s flat Midwestern monotone marking him as the most unlikely Arabian swashbuckler since Oklahoma cowboy Dale Robertson and Paul Henreid.

   Ball’s career had begun as a chorus girl at MGM (if you look quickly you can spot her wearing little but long blonde hair in an early Eddie Cantor outing Roman Scandals), with a long but steady climb up to stardom marked by mostly minor films with a few good roles in major fare like Stage Door (with Katherine Hepburn and Ginger Rogers), a brief period of popularity in films like Du Barry Was A Lady, The Big Street, and Easy To Wed (in the Jean Harlow role from Libeled Lady), and even credit for discovering one of MGM’s greatest stars — Van Johnson.

   Even after leaving MGM for RKO she enjoyed some success, and just one year before this had scored well with Bob Hope in Fancy Pants, a technicolor remake of Ruggles of Redgap.

   But in 1951 she was limited to doing films like Magic Carpet with leads like John Agar — a long fall from the likes of William Holden, Gene Kelly, and co-starring with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn (Without Love) and films like The Dark Corner, Lured, Miss Grant Takes Richmond, and Sorrowful Jones.

   Luckily for her she had options. My Favorite Husband, her long running hit radio series with Richard Denning was being considered for television, and she and Cuban band leader husband Desi Arnaz had plans for that medium …

   The Magic Carpet is Arabian Nights by rote. The Caliph is over thrown by evil Ali (Gabriel Gaye) and his henchman Boreg al Buzzar (Raymond Burr), who murder the Caliph and his wife, but not before she places their infant son on the magic carpet of the title, which carries him to safety and the sanctuary of a local physician, her uncle.

   The true Caliph grows up to be Dr. Ramoth (John Agar), who is also the bandit leader, the Scarlet Falcon, bane of the Caliph Ali and his Grand Vizer Boreg and their corrupt reign.

   In something of a twist, Lucille Ball is not the heroine of the film. That doubtful honor goes to Patricia Medina, who was virtually a staple in this sort of thing — and has here one of the worst dance numbers in the history of Arabian Nights nonsense. Lucy is Princess Narah, the evil Ali’s willful and sexually predatory sister, while Medina is Lida, the sister of Razi (George Tobias — and you have to wonder at the genetics that produced those progeny), the Scarlet Falcon’s right hand man.

   Meanwhile Dr. Ramoth inveigles his way into the royal palace as court physician where he is a great hit with Narah and the Harem, and when his uncle is murdered by suspicious Boreg learns of his own royal birth and the magic carpet, excuse for some terrible special effects and mediocre mat paintings.

   I’d like to say Lucy does her best as the semi evil Narah, but frankly both she and Medina play their respective roles like a pair of feuding strippers with Lucy’s attempts to seduce poor wooden Agar almost as funny as some of her routines on I Love Lucy, if not intentionally.

   Substitute a G-string and pasties for their Arabian finery and move the plot backstage at a burlesque theater and you’d never notice the difference. If this film was any flatter, it wouldn’t even be in two dimensions.

   These things depend on the good will of the audience and the ability of the actors to make us want to believe in the silly but colorful goings on. In the hands of a Cornell Wilde, Jon Hall, or Jeff Chandler and a leading lady like Maria Montez, Maureen O’Hara, Rhonda Fleming, or even the unlikely Virginia Mayo the whole nonsensical thing can be great fun. Here no one seems even willing to try. It doesn’t even rise to the level of cynical exploitation.

   Lucille Ball didn’t make another film until The Long Long Trailer in 1953, an attempt to cash in on the success of I Love Lucy. She did a few films in later years, notably with Bob Hope and Henry Fonda, and bowing out from film finally with the hideous film version of the Broadway musical Mame.

   Her legendary television career and the success of Desilu studios more than made up for it, but you have to think she would have preferred to go out of her big screen career on a better note.

   I’m usually forgiving of these, and even will admit to a taste for the better ones, but this has worse production values than an episode of I Dream of Jeanie, and performances that would have to be upgraded to reach the level of a burlesque comedy routine.

   Still, Raymond Burr at his heaviest and wielding a scimitar is a sight you don’t often see (“This time Doctor, you must tend to a man and not on the ladies of the Harem!”), and the fact that Lucy was pregnant might somewhat mitigate her flat performance — this script would have been enough to give anyone morning sickness:

   Ramoth regains his throne, Lucy and the evil Ali get their comeuppance, and Ramoth and Lida get a final clench on the magic carpet:

   Ah, well, it could be worse. Though I’m not exactly sure how.

Editorial Comment: The whole movie appears to be available on YouTube. This link will take you to some excerpts, so that you may get an overall impression of the film, should you care to continue.

THE FIGHTING GUARDSMAN. Columbia Pictures, 1946. Willard Parker, Anita Louise, Janis Carter, John Loder, Edgar Buchanan, George Macready, Lloyd Corrigan. Based on the novel The Companions of Jehu by Alexandre Dumas père. Director: Henry Levin.

   In all truthfulness, I don’t think there’s much in the novel in this movie, and what’s there is all jumbled around, with no Napoleon Bonaparte in sight, and what’s worse, if you’re a Dumas fan they’ve made a comedy out of it, sort of. (Since I’ve not read the book, but only read about it, there may be some comedic aspects to it, in which case, I will take back that last phrase of that first sentence. Eat my words, I will.)

   But picture a young Edgar Buchanan in various late 18th century peasant garb, or posing as a guard of the royal court (Louis XVI in the movie, and Louis XIII in the book, if I have it right), and prone to funny sidekick behavior, you will see what I mean.

   Also picture Louis XVI as played by pudgy Lloyd Corrigan (Wally Dipple four times on the old Ozzie & Harriet TV show), as he futilely tries to make some inroads, romance-wise, with Janis Carter, whom he has invited for a long stay at his country hideaway – a brassy showgirl type if ever there was one – which is not bad casting, since she’s playing the daughter of the local tavern-keeper, and as such is able to slip Roald (Willard Parker) and his Companions of Jehu some inside dope on what the king and his men are up to.

   (The photo of Mr. Corrigan comes from a scene in The Manchurian Candidate, an altogether different kind of movie, to be sure, but it’s the best I’ve been able to come up with, so far.)

   This is one of those “The Peasants Are Revolting!” movies, which was serious business at the time, but in this movie it has been turned into just another cowboy western, or it would have been, if cowboy westerns had pudgy kings in them with fingers just itching to find their way into places where they were not allowed. (I’ve left a lot of the rest of the plot out, and with a running time of 84 minutes, this means a noticeable amount.)

   Willard Parker, last mentioned on this blog for his title role in The Great Jesse James Raid [reviewed here ] is just as stalwart and upstanding as he was when he was playing Jesse James. At least he’s supposed to be a hero in The Fighting Guardsman, and I have to admit that he does it very well.

   And if the movie had been filmed in color, as it should have been, he would have done it even better, I am sure.

THE SWORD OF LANCELOT. Universal Pictures, 1963. Released originally in the UK as Lancelot and Guinevere. Cornel Wilde (Lancelot), Jean Wallace (Guinevere), Brian Aherne (King Arthur), George Baker, Archie Duncan, Michael Meacham, Mark Dignam (Merlin). Director & co-screenwriter: Cornel Wilde.

   Everyone reading this knows the story, or you should, so I won’t take the time or space to go into details. But the details do change every time the story is filmed — and how many times has it been? — which is why every time it’s filmed, it’s worth seeing again.

   There must be something in the story, the ill-fated love triangle between Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot, that keeps it fresh and entertaining, no matter how times you see it.

   I do have a couple of comments, though, and as I keep typing, the couple may turn into a few. The first, though, are the ages of the performers. Brian Aherne was 61 and close to the end of his acting career. Cornel Wilde was 48, and Jean Wallace, to whom he was married at the time, was 40.

   They were not youngsters, but even if you were to think them too old — by say 20 years — with their general enthusiasm and zeal for their roles, they can make you believe that they are younger, or very nearly so.

   By all appearances, Cornell Wilde was working with a relatively low budget. This is not a lavish, MGM-style motion picture. But I think the non-majestic if not homely surroundings for the interior of Camelot are more likely to have been the case at the time, if Camelot every really existed, than the splendiforous, wonderfully marvelous settings you may see in other movie versions of the tale, if not most of them.

   The movie is in color, which is definitely a plus. And the battles on horseback and on foot, with lances, spears, axes, maces and any other fierce-looking weapons the combatants could get their hands on are equally authentic looking.

   Not to mention gruesome. One gets the feeling at times that this is the way battles really looked, with swords sticking out of endless bodies on the ground, with the constant danger of being trampled underfoot, if they were not already dead.

   Merlin plays a relatively small role, I am disappointed to say, but Arthur seems really delighted to have Guinevere brought to him by Lancelot, and I felt badly for him when things do not work out the way he anticipates. Even worse, his final fate is dealt with off-screen and well after the fact, and I was disappointed in that as well. He deserved better.

KING SOLOMON’S MINES. Gaumont British Pictures, 1937. Paul Robeson, Cedric Hardwicke, Roland Young, Anna Lee, John Loder, Arthur Sinclair, Arthur Goullett. Michael Hogan, primary scriptwriter; Roland Pertwee, dialogue; based on the novel by H. Rider Haggard. Director: Robert Stevenson.

   In 1950, when the next adaptation of King Solomon’s Mines appeared — the one with Stewart Granger and Deborah Kerr — everybody I knew went to see it, my parents and everyone in our extended family, everybody in my grade, including me.

   But I was only eight years old, and while bits and pieces sound familiar to me from reading reviews in Maltin and online, I don’t remember much more than that and I haven’t seen it since.

   I’ve just purchased it on DVD, though, and you can bet I’ll be watching it sometime soon. In the meantime, this 1937 version came up the other day (or rather overnight) on Turner Classic Movies, so of course I taped it and have even managed to find time to watch it.

   I found it rather slow moving at first, but once our adventurers find their way across the desert — in search of fortune-hunting father of Kathy O’Brien (Anna Lee) — and they’re captured by natives within sight of where the famed diamond mine should be, the pace picks up considerably.

   The special effects — the lake of lava inside the cave where the mine is — are special, indeed, the characters stalwart and strong, and good-looking, too, some of them!

   And there’s some comedy to go along with the adventure, too, not to mention a couple of stout-hearted songs from Paul Robeson as Umbopa, their black guide who has a claim to be the true leader of the native tribe who have them all as prisoners — the leader of whom is quite a blood-thirsty fellow. Luckily one of the fortune-hunters has an entry in his diary that helps save the day, at least temporarily.

   Quite remarkably, the leading billing goes to Paul Robeson, exactly as in the credits above. Cedric Hardwick, as Allan Quatermain, while sedate and professorial in nature and always with pipe in hand, is definitely the man in charge, while Anna Lee (later of General Hospital fame on TV) was quite young, high-spirited and beautiful in 1937. (She was a mere lass of 24 at the time.)

   All in all, an enjoyable experience. It does cry out to have been filmed in color, but black and white it was, and as such it had to suffice until 1950 came along, and the red-haired beauty of Deborah Kerr.

RAIDERS OF THE SEVEN SEAS. United Artists, 1953. John Payne, Donna Reed, Gerald Mohr, Lon Chaney, Anthony Caruso, Henry Brandon, Skip Torgerson. Director & co-screenwriter: Sidney Salkow.

   John Payne, probably better known for the westerns and noirish crime he did, takes a break from either and shows up in this film taking place in and around the Caribbean in color as a privateer called Barbarossa, or “Red Beard.”

   I mention that the film is in color for two reasons. First of all, to show off John Payne’s red close-cropped chin adornment, and secondly, to demonstrate how striking a beauty the young dark-haired Donna Reed was. Although she was in her share of them, black and white films (and TV work) simply did not do her justice.

   As the daughter of a Spanish governor, she is kidnapped by Barbarossa early on in this film, or at least her character Alida is. And of course if you think it follows that the two of them get along, it only means that you have not seen many movies of this same type, whether they are pirate films, westerns, or even straight drama — in eras, it should go without saying, where kidnapping was ever an acceptable first step in winning a lady’s hand.

   As it happens, Alida is also engaged to marry Captain Jose Salcedo (Gerald Mohr), but since her future husband was chosen for her in advance, his hold on her is tenuous. And once he shows his true colors, then as if by magic — movie magic, that is — well, you know, and you could have written this too.

   Gerald Mohr, he of the sleepy eyes and perpetual lopsided sneer, is horribly miscast as a Spanish officer, just as a warning, in case you are a fan of his, as am I.

   Mohr was far more suited for westerns and film noir than even John Payne was. With a voice very similar to Philip Marlowe’s on the radio, he would also have been pitch perfect as a sleazy but effective private eye type of character, although I am not sure if he ever played one on the screen.

   As for Donna Reed, she won an Oscar for her very next film, From Here to Eternity, then starred in a Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis film, followed by a couple of westerns. Given the uneven nature of the films she was in, I wonder how well she’d be remembered today if she hadn’t landed her own series on TV, The Donna Reed Show, a very domestic situation comedy that lasted for eight years, 1958 to 1966, followed by a short stint as Eleanor Ewing on Dallas in the mid-1980s.

   In any case, there is some entertainment value to this film, but in all honesty, it’s all done pretty much by the numbers.

   Luckily they did film it in color — even though I couldn’t come up with any scenes from the movie to prove it — otherwise even that last paragraph might be stretching the truth a little too much.

THE THREE MUSKETEERS. Radio Pictures, 1935. Walter Abel (D’Artagnan), Ian Keith (Count de Rochefort), Margot Grahame (Milady de Winter), Paul Lukas (Athos), Moroni Olsen (Porthos), Onslow Stevens (Aramis), Heather Angel (Constance), Rosamond Pinchot (Queen Anne), John Qualen (Planchet). Based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas père. Director & co-screenwriter: Rowland V. Lee.

   When I sat down to watch this, I was taken a bit by surprise. I thought I’d taped the 1948 version. The one with Lana Turner and Gene Kelly? In color? And this one was in black and white and starred Walter Abel.

   Walter Abel? Much better a young Walter Cronkite, I thought, than Walter Abel. But even though he was already 37, this was essentially Walter Abel’s screen debut, and as D’Artagnan, the young man who joins the other three musketeers to foil a plot against Queen Anne of France in the 1600s, he shows just enough zeal and wild abandon to carry the day. (He’s the one on the right in the photo above.)

   Or so I thought. The general opinion of this movie appears to be rather low, so I may be in the minority on this.

   It doesn’t help that none of the other leading players of this movie were big box office stars, then or now. Not that they were unknowns. Paul Lucas, for one, was in numerous films and won an Oscar for Watch on the Rhine, and Margot Grahame was still making movies or on TV through 1959, but neither name, I’m sure, would be recognized in many homes today.

   It also doesn’t help that 1600s France and who was King and who was Queen and who in their court and retinue was plotting against whom are some of things that most people no longer know very much about. I suspect that most high school history courses covered that material much more thoroughly in 1935 than I’m sure they do today.

   It also doesn’t help that except for Walter Abel, all of the musketeers look alike, and so do most of the other male players, all in proper garb, it is assumed, but nonetheless all but interchangeable.

   But there is a good sense of humor that comes along with this version, though, and of course lots and lots of swordplay. (Not many muskets, however, if any.) The story line follows that of the book well enough, as I recall, and you can never go wrong with that, making it about half way through, again as I recall, before wrapping things up, and rather tidily, too.