Director: Max Linder
Year: 1922
Country: France
Rating: 7.0
A very amusing silent parody of The Three Musketeers
from Max Linder. No doubt with the Douglas Fairbanks version in mind. I think
this is my first experience with Linder; I hope not my last. There are some
very clever gags and visual jokes in this and a sense of the absurd. Linder
was French which is why he may not be as well-known as his good friend Charlie
Chaplin. Linder came first though and Chaplin always said that Linder was
his mentor. Born in 1883 Linder was first a serious dramatic actor in the
theater but then film came along and he found out that he could be funny.
Pathe signed him up and beginning in 1905 he made over a 100 shorts of his
character Max. Max was a dandified top hat female chasing fool who is constantly
in trouble.
Max is considered the first movie comedian
character in various films. He was enormously popular and this being the
silent period, he was easily digested all over the world. Linder was on the
top of his game when WWI came to France and he enlisted and was injured a
few times and saw such horrors, that he remained depressed for the rest of
his life. It effected his films and his popularity began to decline. In an
attempt to shake things up, he moved to Hollywood to make films but they
too were not successful. He dropped the Max character and made this film.
It didn't do that well either and he went back to France. In 1924, he and
his wife killed themselves. So much for the cheery background.
I believe that this version on YouTube is
missing a fair amount of the film, but hard to tell what as it covers much
of the Three Musketeer tale that we are so familiar with. It begins with
the father trying to get Dart-in-Again to leave and join the Musketeers,
but he is busy dolling himself up and putting on his best Chevalier (who
worked with Linder at one point) straw hat that his horse later eats. He
has trouble getting on his horse who has fallen in love with the cow and
doesn't want to go. He makes it to Paris and goes to see the head of the
Musketeers who turns out to be a midget who keeps falling off his chair.
Then the duels with Walrus, Octopus and Porpoise. I am not sure if Linder
used stunt doubles but if not he makes an incredible jump off a parapet to
the ground below with no edits - ala Yuen Biao in Millionaire's Express.
Queen Anne has given her bracelet to Lord
Poussy Bunkumin and Cardinal Richie-Loo sees it and sets a trap for the Queen.
Dart-in-Again puts sails on his horse and sets off across the Channel for
England. A few modern touches are added - Queen Anne has a brass band entertaining
her and uses a typewriter to send a message to her lover, a telephone is
used to notify the guards that the Musketeers are coming and so forth. It
is constantly slyly amusing and I will have to see what other Linder fare
is on YouTube.
