The Three Musketeers

If any actor was perfectly cast for the role of the swashbuckling D'Artagnan in a big screen adaptation of Alexandre Dumas's classic 1844 adventure novel, it was silent screen icon Douglas Fairbanks. With his kinetic athleticism and vibrant charisma, Fairbanks originated the concept of action movie hero in this opulent 1921 production, here digitally restored with a new theater organ score by Ben Model. This version is faithful to the Dumas text, meaning that there is a fair amount of scheming by various members of the French court before D'Artagnan and the Musketeers (including a young and slender Eugene Pallette) arrive to engage in entertaining swordplay. And while Fred Niblo's direction encourages some wonderfully broad acting—Adolphe Menjou's emotional Louis XIII, Nigel de Brulier's sinister Cardinal Richelieu and long-forgotten vamp Barbara La Marr's dangerous Milady de Winter—the film belongs to Fairbanks, who embodies D'Artagnan with a youthful recklessness and sublime physical prowess that turns the character into a force of nature. Highly recommended. (P. Hall)