With this in mind, finding the name of prolific screenwriter Jack Pollexfen in the credits as both co-writer/executive producer makes sense since he was responsible for some pretty oddball cinematic reinventions of classic literary texts, namely THE SON OF DR. THE FIFTH MUSKETEER (1979)! While I was happy to find three of Hayward's films that I just watched to be better than their muted reputation would have you believe, the same is (relatively) untrue for this one since, as can be intimated from some of my comments above, the end result emerges as rather a preposterous concoction. in the superior Technicolor adventure AT SWORD'S POINT and would go back to doing Porthos in the belated, star-studded remake of THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK itself, i.e. (Porthos), Steve Brodie (barely recognizable as Athos, decked out in an unbecoming wig for the most part and, at one point, amusingly seen in drag!!) and one Judd Holdren (Aramis)! curiously, Hale Jr. It must be said that, arguably, Louis Hayward's best screen vehicle was when he played the titular dual roles in James Whale's definitive 1939 version of THE MAN IN THE IRON MASK (where Warren William was D'Artagnan) needless to say, this is a retelling of the same tale - even if the opening credits state that it is actually based on "The Three Musketeers"! - with Hayward now taking on the role of the Fourth Musketeer and, most crucially, changing the sex of the imperiled royals! Obviously enough, it is Medina who now has to perform double duties and, as if it did not have the semblance of familiarity enough already, John Sutton returns from CAPTAIN PIRATE (1952) to fill in the boots of the aristocratic scoundrel pulling all the wrong strings behind the throne of France! For the record, the Three Musketeers are here enacted by Alan Hale, Jr. This was now the fourth consecutive Louis Hayward-Patricia Medina pairing in two years and the third to be directed by Ralph Murphy although the latter's first relevant effort, THE LADY AND THE BANDIT (1951) is easily the weakest of the quintet I have just watched, the stars must have hit it off with him since they retained his services in such quick succession and, in retrospect, improved on the end product with each reunion. #Tor johnson mask upgradeI will say at the outset that the copy I landed was not only the most battered of the five but, worse still, that it was sourced from a black-and-white print when the film was originally released in a Cinecolor process dubbed "Naturalcolor"!! For the record, this odd practice is not as rare as one would think: I do recall a few occasions where films were broadcast on TV shorn of colour - one such example being Raffaello Matarazzo's epic THE SHIP OF CONDEMNED WOMEN (1953).which I own but have yet to upgrade to its official version, even if it was made available eventually! Nevertheless, I am not one to look a gift horse in the mouth and, thankfully, I only realized the discrepancy after the fact so that my enjoyment was not marred by foreknowledge. When I started on this mini-Louis Hayward retrospective, I bemoaned the fact that the film under review was unavailable to me for assessment (at this point, I am now left with only THE ROYAL African RIFLES to catch up with from amongst the star's adventure outings) well, four days later, here I am writing about it! Blame it on the limitless, rapid-fire 21st century technology.
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