User Reviews

"The Three Must-Get-There's" is a delightful, funny and incredible comedy, even for a German aristocrat who doesn't have any sense of humour ( or at least doesn't understand hypothetical Frenchified funny situations ), starring the great Herr Max Linder. This film was the last of his American period, and unfortunately Herr Linder would only star in two more films before his tragic ending. "The Three Must-Get-There's" is a parody of Herr Douglas Fairbanks' character and films, so this time Herr Linder takes off his characteristic hat and suit and puts on a longhaired French wig and one of those bizarre French regional costumes, Herr Linder being at ease with such clothes and making fun of those strange habits of his countrymen, such as being a musketeer, indeed a peculiar job even for the French.

The film is a brilliant comedy full of linguistic puns and excellent visual gags wherein nothing is what it seems at first sight ( Dart-in-Again crosses the English channel in a sailing horse! ), mixing up the old with the new ( Dart-in-Again uses a horse or a motorcycle, depending on his purposes ) in an original and unexpected way, and full of funny stunts perfect for this kind of film genre, that give the film a rhythmic pace in order to depict the adventures of the musketeers and their efforts to retrieve the Queen's brooch from her lover before the King notices.

"The Three Must-Get-There's" is an excellent example of the inventiveness, originality, elegance and humour of one of the greatest comedians of silent film history.

And now, if you'll allow me, I must temporarily take my leave because this German Count must keep his serious German sneer after having been amused with such funny French things.

The Three Must-Get-Theres (1922) : Brief Review -

Linder destroys Douglas Fairbanks' "The Three Musketeers" to give us the funniest "d'Artagnan". Firstly, I must hail the one who thought of this title 10 decades ago. From The Three Musketeers to "The Three Must-Get-Theres".. How amazingly funny and insanely humourous thing this is. We don't get to see such humour in 2023, and they did a century ago. Kudos!!! Max Linder's spoof of the popular tale will have you in gag-riot mode for sure. Linder was a legend-a less-known one too. People often talk about Buster Keaton's spoof of DW Girffith's "Intolerance" (1916), so why isn't there enough talk about this spoof by Max Linder? Was it because his stardom was in decline in the 20s? God knows why, but I feel it was unfair to the legend. Anyway, The Three Must-Get-Theres is a thoughtful comedy. A spoof that actually redefines the meaning of the word and explains how one should actually do this thing right. You know the story, but just see how he did it here. He did not really change anything in the basic plot, right from d'Artagnan's entry, his challenge to three knights, the queen's necklace, her maid, and whatever there is. He just added his comic flavour to it with everything possible at that time. He had telephones installed at the palace and even on trees, and he had a typewriter too. That's definitely a spoof, and a damn funny one. Intertitles like "You killed 99 when you knew we needed 100 to get a discount" are hilarious. Speaking of a rare experiment in comedy, Linder even had one slow-mo shot of horseback riding. It's just brilliant. Max Linder's d'Artagnan is extremely entertaining right from his first scene. Action, adventure, romance, expressions, physical comedy, and what not. He has done everything to make sure that you enjoy it. Fairbanks feature will always have its place, but what Max did shouldn't be written in mini format. It would be an insult for us movie lovers.

RATING - 7.5/10*

By - #samthebestest.

The tendency to characterise Douglas Fairbanks as an acrobatic swashbuckling hero sometimes obscures the fact that he was basically a very fine comedian. Even his swashbucklers are comedies and have little in common with the later work of Errol Flynn or Tyrone Power. And his early comedies, the unforgettable Mystery of the Leaping Fish (1916) or When the Clouds Roll By (1919) are amongst his very best films.

I emphasise this because it seems to me that it is close affinity between the acting style of Fairbanks and Linder (they were also good friends) that make this very close parody such a success. Although it is true that Chaplin borrowed stylistic and sartorial tricks from Max, there is nothing much in common between their styles of comedy while there is a great deal of common ground between Doug and Max which the latter fully exploits in this delightful parody, arguably in fact a better film than the original.

Even the scenes of swash and buckle are impressive and evidently Fairbanks himself must have thought so because he subsequently employed the same Belgian fencing-master, Fred Cavens, for his own later swashbucklers.

The other US comic with whom Linder has a certain obvious affinity is Buster Keaton and both men were clearly aware of each other's films. Max's Be My Wife (1921) borrows a gag from Keaton's The Scarecrow (1920) for one of its episodes and Keaton makes a similar if less exuberant use of anachronism (here the brief appearance of the fetish top hat, the bikes, the telephone) in his own later parodies (The Three Ages and The Frozen North).

To fully appreciate L'Étroit Mousquetaire, to give it its rather neater French title, it does need to be watched in a good copy and unfortunately most of the prints available (even on DVD) are poor in quality and, more seriously still for a genre that relies on timing, lack intertitles and play at an inappropriately fast speed. There is a print of excellent quality and it is worth digging out. The version I have seen is Russian - but beware, there is also a Russian DVD version that is poor - but only currently seems to be available on youtube under the Russian title (and in cyrillic script). It is an excellent quality print, has a fair few intertitles (in Russian but, provided you know the story, this is no great problem) but, most importantly, runs at a proper speed (about 50 minutes in all) so it is really possible to appreciate what a little masterpiece this film is.