The sons of the three musketeers
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | The sons of the three musketeers |
| Original title | At Sword's Point |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1952 |
| length | 81 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Lewis Allen |
| script |
Walter Ferris Joseph Hoffman Idea: Aubrey Wisberg and Jack Pollexfen |
| production | Sid Rogell |
| music | Roy Webb |
| camera | Ray Rennahan |
| cut |
Samuel E. Beetley Robert Golden |
| occupation | |
| |
The Sons of the Three Musketeers (Original title: At Sword's Point , cross-reference: The Sons of the Musketeers ) is an American adventure film from 1952 directed by Lewis Allen . In addition to Cornel Wilde and Maureen O'Hara, the main roles are cast with Robert Douglas and Gladys Cooper .
action
“France 1648: A fateful year in the history of this country: Cardinal Richelieu , the great statesman, is dead. Terror and violence reign. The power-hungry nobility of the country tries to usurp the rule. ”Queen Anne, the widow of Louis XIII. , means to her doctor that she knows that she is going to end, unfortunately the Duc de Lavalle, whose sight she can hardly bear, knows that too. Your country is in political chaos at this point. Her worst opponent is de Lavalle, a senior member of the Council of Nobles who is extremely scheming. He wants to marry Henriette, the queen's daughter, and kill the legitimate heir to the throne, the young Prince Louis. The queen, who can hardly expect help from the bribed court servants, sees only one possibility. She made contact with the musketeers who supported her as a young woman. D'Artagnan is now dead, but his son, who bears his name, knows of the importance of the ring that bears the Bourbon lilies in the coat of arms, and which the Queen sent as a cry for help in dire need, and immediately sets off Way to Aramis, who also rides for his father. Since Porthos is now suffering from gout, he too sends his son. Now only Athos is missing, he has a son, but he is still too young, which is why his daughter Claire sets off to meet the other musketeers. The young lady is unsurpassed in sword fighting and prefers to walk around in men's clothes. On the way to the queen the four have to endure many a fight, because you want to make them harmless at all costs.
After the musketeers have introduced themselves to Queen Anne, the queen asks them to bring her daughter Henriette to safety in Spain, where the king is her cousin. Then she confides in the musketeers that her son Louis is hidden in a monastery. Nobody else knows where he is. The queen has another adversary in Comtesse Claudine, who spies for Lavalle. Unfortunately, the Duc and his vassals manage to arrest three of the musketeers. He has the men tortured so that they can reveal the whereabouts of Louis, but is unsuccessful. De Lavalle even went so far as to schedule the execution of D'Artagnan and the other musketeers, his last resort of putting pressure on the queen herself. Should she not agree to his marriage to her daughter Henriette, the men would have to die. The people who love their queen should be led to believe that it is the queen's wish that Henriette should marry de Lavalle. The Queen now sees no other way out to save the Musketeers and agrees to de Lavalle's terms. The musketeers are free and the wedding will be arranged immediately. When the bride lifts her veil in the church, de Lavalle experiences a nasty surprise, Claire has taken Henriette's place during the wedding ceremony. The Musketeers are meanwhile on the road with Henriette to bring them to safety. On their escape, they learn that Queen Anne is dead.
Meanwhile, they try to set a trap for Claire, who is being held captive, with the help of the scheming Comtesse Claudine. She is supposed to believe that the Comtesse is on her side. Claudine arranges an escape approved by de Lavalle and Claire is told that the Musketeers have been captured again. In fact, the Comtesse succeeds in coaxing the secret of Louis' whereabouts from Claire. The Comtesse immediately forwards a message to this effect to de Lavalle, who can then be celebrated as the new regent of France.
In the meantime the musketeers and Henriette have reached the monastery in which Louis is being kept. However, this has already been taken by the Duc de Lavalle and his vassals. He forces Louis and Henriette to get into a carriage; they would all notice who was in charge now. Meanwhile, Claire has also arrived with the traitorous Comtesse near the monastery, where she meets the Musketeers. It quickly becomes clear what the wrong game Claudine has played and they discuss what to do next. From above, the Comtesse reveals to the musketeers that Louis will not survive the trip to Paris, because de Lavalle has been all-powerful since the Queen's death.
De Levalle has meanwhile extorted Louis' signature on a document and is planning his murder. He wants to announce to the people that the king probably died of a weak heart during the journey from exhaustion. He put Henriette under so much pressure that she too has to fear for her life. The musketeers use a ruse to find out where de Levalle is with Louis and Henriette. As they need reinforcements, they quickly mobilize more courageous men who are like them brave musketeers and loyal to the crown, and ride with them to free the young king and princess. They use the Comtesse as an entrance ticket to the Castle of Laverne. Then you make sure that the other musketeers can penetrate the castle and a life-and-death struggle breaks out between them and the vassals of de Levalle. Ultimately, it is D'Artagnan personally who takes up the fight with de Levalle and kills him in a sword fight. The musketeers swear their loyalty to Louis, the new king, and D'Artagnan and Claire, who fell in love when they first met, happily embrace.
Production notes and background
The film was produced in mid-December 1949, further recordings were made in February 1950. It is a film by RKO Radio Pictures Inc. The costumes are by Edward Stevenson . It was published in the United States in February 1952. On April 9, 1952, it started in New York . It was released in cinemas in the Federal Republic of Germany on August 22, 1952, and in Austria in March 1953. In the GDR , the film entitled The Sons of the Musketeers was first shown on television on November 28, 1964. The new film program has the film title: The Sons of the 3 Musketeers .
The working title of the film was Sons of the Musketeers . According to the Hollywood Reporter , the story was bought for $ 25,000 in 1946 and resold to RKO in 1947. Alan Hale Sr., the father of Alan Hale Jr., who plays the young Porthos in the film, was loaned to Warner Bros. for the role of old Porthos. Before he could complete his role, however, Hale senior died in January 1950. He was replaced by Moroni Olsen. At the end of September 1950, more scenes with Cornel Wilde were added to the film, which is said to go back to the influence of RKO boss Howard Hughes .
Maureen O'Hara, often referred to as the Queen in Technicolor because of her stunning looks and gorgeous red hair, was predestined at the time to play roles that focused on her ability to wield a sword or hang up on the mast of a ship in reef pirates , for example, in the right light. She was often the popular heroine in adventure films in the 1940s. This film, made in 1949, also makes use of her daring vitality and charisma. In her role as the daughter of the musketeer Athos, she is in no way inferior to the sons of D'Artagnan, Porthos and Aramis in courage, intelligence and the art of fencing. The film historian Jeanine Basinger found in the Wesleyan University Press in 1995 that the importance of the film lies in the fact that it shows a woman who is equal in the world of men. In the film it is not made a big deal of the fact that she is a feminine woman, but also knows how to fight just as well as men and not avoid a duel.
Alan Hale junior plays Porthos's son. His father, Alan Hale Sr. , played Porthos in The Man in the Iron Mask (1939) and Hale Jr. also played the character in The Secret of the Iron Mask (1979). It played the role of the aging D'Artagnan in front of Cornel Wilde, who plays D'Artagnan's son in that film. Finally, Moroni Olsen should be mentioned, who plays the old Porthos in this film, a role that he played as a young Porthos in the 1935 film The Three Musketeers .
There are numerous film versions of this material, see → here .
- DVD
The film was released on March 13, 2009 by Sony Film as a Special Collectors Edition, together with the film adaptation of The Great Musketeer . Also in 2009 it was released on DVD by Sunfilm Entertainment.
Comparison of historical facts - film plot
Anna of Austria (1601–1666), later French name Anne d'Autriche, was a Spanish-Portuguese Infanta and Archduchess of Austria from the House of Habsburg. From 1615 she was queen and from 1643 to 1651, as the mother of Louis XIV , who was still a minor , she was regent of France. Richelieu (1585–1642) was a French aristocrat, prince of the church and statesman. He was under King Louis XIII until his death . (1601–1643) as First Minister, the decisive political figure in French politics. King Ludwig's wife, Anna of Austria, was very upset when, around 1640, towards the end of the Thirty Years' War, Richelieu supported rebels in Catalonia and Portugal who revolted against the central power in Madrid.
In contrast to what is shown in the film, Richelieu died in 1642. Queen Anne, on the other hand, did not die when Louis / Ludwig was still a child. The young king lived under the reign of his mother until he was 13 years old (1651), although the actual power was exercised by Cardinal Mazarin during this period . He also had no sister, but only a brother who was two years his junior ( Philipp 1640–1701).
criticism
The lexicon of international films spoke of a "European story from an American perspective: Wild West in historical costumes". They also found: "Staged with less wit and enthusiasm than the cinematic model 'The Three Musketeers' from two years earlier."
For Cinema , Maureen O'Hara was the “highlight of the amusing costume film” as the “distinctive blade lady”.
HHT of the New York Times spoke of an assembly line that looked wooden. There was nothing to be gained from the dialogues either. After all, Maureen O'Hara was certified that she looked gorgeous in her men's clothing and that Cornel Wilde was excellent at handling the sword. Gladys Cooper's performance as queen is, as always with her, good.
Rinkworks found the film entertaining enough to watch, even if it fluffed up.
Edwin Jahiel was indignant about the simplifications and changes made to Alexandre Dumas' novel about the three musketeers and their sequels.
Web links
- At Sword's Point in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- At Sword's Point at Turner Classic Movies (English)
- At Sword's Point Trailer / film clips at TCM (English)
- The Sons of the Three Musketeers Illustrated Film Courier
Individual evidence
- ↑ The Sons of the 3 Musketeers The New Film Program
- ↑ At Sword's Point Notes at TCM (English)
- ↑ a b At Sword's Point Articles at TCM (English)
- ↑ The Sons of the Three Musketeers etc. DVD review splashmovies.de
- ↑ The sons of the three musketeers at dvd-forum.at
- ↑ The Sons of the Three Musketeers. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 31, 2019 .
- ↑ The Sons of the Three Musketeers cinema.de (with pictures of the film). Retrieved July 28, 2015.
- ↑ HHT: At Sword's Point In: The New York Times, April 10, 1952. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
- ↑ At Sword's Point In: rinworks.com. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
- ↑ At Sword's Point - Movie Reviews by Edwin Jahiel ( Memento of the original from September 23, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. edwinjahiel.com. Retrieved July 28, 2015.
