Score and parts for hire

Starring: Douglas Fairbanks Snr, Marguerite De La Morte, Nigel De Brulier Director: Allan Dwan Production Company: Elton Corporation USA, 1929 Duration: 103 minutes Film Print: newly restored B&W print available from Photoplay Productions (Film Speed: 22-24 frames per second) Premiere with Davis's score: 1999, London Film Festival 57 Players: 2(II=picc).2(II=ca).2(II=bcl).2 - 4231 - timp - perc(3) - harp - strings (mm 10.8.6.6.4) (an additional horn and trumpet player are recommended) In his last swashbuckling success, Douglas Fairbanks returned to a role he was born to play: Alexander Dumas' D'Artagnan. The character provided a perfect foil for the qualities that had established Fairbanks as the silent screen's most beloved hero -exuberance, agility, and devil-may-care courage. Drawing on Dumas' The Three Musketeers and The Man in the Iron Mask, Fairbanks and director Allan Dwan concocted a tale of Machiavellian intrigue on a lavish scale. The birth of twins to Anne of Austria and Louis XIII bodes ill for the French monarchy. Unwittingly, DArtagnan is embroiled in the subterfuge after the abduction of his lover, Constance. His search leads to the 'eminence gris himself, Cardinal Richelieu, with whom he strikes a bargain for the lives of his comrades in arms, the Three Musketeers. His charge is to protect the true heir to the throne from the machinations of the villainous Count de Rochefort. Made in 1929, this film marks the silent screen's last homage to a more chivalrous age and Fairbanks' spectacular farewell to the art that had made him the uncrowned King of Hollywood.