An oddly anachronistic intertitle from Max Linder’s THE THREE MUST-GET-THERES, which, as its title strongly hints, is a somewhat lame Fairbanks spoof. But there are compensations — Linder himself is never less than appealing, and there are some grotesque images. In fact, the whole thing is weirdly unpleasant.
Bull Montana as the Cardinal, every bit as disturbing as a Francis Bacon screaming pope. Wasn’t Montana an ape-man in the silent LOST WORLD or something? The name stuck in my head from an old issue of Famous Monsters of Filmland (I owned two issues as a lad).
What’s odd here is the faithfulness to Dumas’ basic plot (or the first half of it, anyway), which sits uncomfortably with the anachronisms and anything-goes farce. I’m a big fan of AU SECOURS!, his Abel Gance-directed haunted house romp, but I’ve only seen extracts from his earlier French work. Must get better acquainted with it.
shadowplay 