Cuplog

What would happen if you combined a film adaptation of the greatest swashbuckling epic of all time, Alexandre Dumas’ The Three Musketeers, with a Chinese kung fu flick? Apparently the makers of The Musketeer (2001) asked such a question, and the answer is nothing good.

The stunts, which are likely the reason (or excuse) for the film being made at all, are intended to awe and amuse the audience, but merely bore with their ridiculousness. There are two basic schools of martial arts films. One emphasizes the true physical mastery of the martial artist (such as Bruce Lee or Tony Jaa); the other emphasizes the martial artist as a fantasy hero, with wires to enable the characters to perform superhuman feats and various techniques to convey superhuman speed and agility. The greatest swashbuckling movies, for the most part, can count themselves as kin to the first type of martial arts movie, going all the way back to the derring-do of Douglas Fairbanks Sr., with stunts that were all the more shocking for their audacity because they were real. In much the same way that one is astounded by the skill and courage of trapeze artists, the best of the classic swashbuckling films had actors who did all their own fencing, climbing, leaping, diving, chandelier-swinging, and precipice-balancing. Replace all that with wires, stunt doubles, and very careful editing, and you rip the soul out of swashbuckling. And you get The Musketeer.

The inappropriate stylings of stunt choreographer Xin Xin Xiong aside, The Musketeer manages to reduce its greatest strength, its source material, to a bland and predictable tale of revenge, halfheartedly and wearily performed by its better actors (Catherine Deneuve) and woodenly performed by its lesser actors (the rest of the cast). Characters who had a richness of complexity are impoverished by the writers to a state of two-dimensionality that could have been just as easily fulfilled by cardboard standees. Whether assessed as an adaptation or revision of The Three Musketeers, The Musketeer is a uniform failure.

1. Writing: Terrible
2. Directing: Mediocre
3. Acting: Poor
4. Cinematography: Fair
5. Stunts: Poor
6. Swordplay: Mediocre
7. Panache: Terrible

Overall Rating: Poor
Swashbuckling Rank: Poor

If any film could be declared the ultimate swashbuckling film, Scaramouche (1952) would easily qualify as a contender for the title. It is said to have both the longest duelling scene and the greatest number of duels of any movie. Whether this is true or not, the duels are a marvel of fight choreography. Both Stewart Granger and Mel Ferrer performed all of their own duels and stunts, which is all the more remarkable when it is discovered that their duel on the railing of a theatre balcony was executed without a net. The action is spectacular, but the drama and the comedy (essential to a film named after the clown of the Commedia dell’arte) give the film its impeccable balance. Scaramouche is truly one of the great masterpieces of the genre.

• Writing: Great
• Directing: Superb
• Acting: Good
• Cinematography: Great
• Stunts: Superb
• Swordplay: Superb
• Panache: Superb

Overall Rating: Great
Swashbuckling Rank: Superb

One of the most entertaining courtships in the history of swashbuckling films is that of Tyrone Power as buccaneer Jamie Waring and Maureen O’Hara as Lady Margaret Denby in 1942’s The Black Swan. Although opposites attract, and socially they could scarcely be in greater opposition, they are far more similar in temperament, which leads to an amusing tug of war amongst the backdrop of warring pirates and privateers in the Caribbean during the reign of William III in England and Captain Henry Morgan in Jamaica. The fencing is excellent, as can be expected with Tyrone Power in the lead, although it suffers in at least one scene from the film having been unnecessarily sped up, which is certainly dismaying for those who appreciate Power’s swordsmanship. Beautifully filmed and scored, The Black Swan ranks as one of the genre’s enduring classics.

• Writing: Good
• Directing: Good
• Acting: Great
• Cinematography: Great
• Stunts: Great
• Swordplay: Great
• Panache: Great

Overall Rating: Great
Swashbuckling Rank: Great

Captain Kidd from 1945 is a lopsided classic of the pirate genre, with the bulk of its favor being the weight of Charles Laughton’s highly entertaining performance as Captain William Kidd. Although it departs from historical accuracy more often than not, it stands as a classic pirate movie with buried treasure, brazen treachery, terrible butchery, and sea battles galore. Some of the roles and those cast to play them are weak and workmanlike, but Reginald Owen complements Laughton nicely as Kidd’s manservant, Shadwell, employed to teach his master the social etiquette he aspires to use in his climb to the peerage, and Henry Daniell succeeds is giving his role as King William III a convincing air of authority and royal puissance. Captain Kidd would have profited from more appropriate casting (Randolph Scott was not the optimum choice for the part of the hero, Adam Mercy), and a few more examples of bloody mêlée would not have gone amiss, but all in all it is worth watching just to see Laughton strutting the deck on the high seas again.

• Writing: Fair
• Directing: Fair
• Acting: Fair (Mediocre to Good)
• Cinematography: Good
• Stunts: Good
• Swordplay: Fair
• Panache: Great (Laughton), Fair (Scott)

Overall Rating: Good
Swashbuckling Rank: Good