MGM's gorgeous 1948 version of "The Three Musketeers" is part of an excellent film......but, sadly, the other part is Gene Kelly. In most aspects the film is wonderful. Van Heflin's and especially Lana Turner's performances are among the very best of their careers. The only real flaw in the film is the usually excellent Gene Kelly's performance, and it is major and catastrophic! His D'Artagnan is jarringly, surrealisticly out of tone with everything else in the film. Granted, the character should be somewhat comic, but Kelly plays it manically, hysterically over the top, as if he wandered in from the Tex Avery cartoon next door. Unspeakably cringe inducing! And a terrible shame, since the remainder of the film is SO good!
Review of The Three Musketeers
