Movie serials aren't sophisticated entertainment and they are jam-packed with contradictory scenes (such as SEEING a hero get blown up in one episode, only to see in the second episode that he SOMEHOW escaped) and inconsistencies. They were hastily made and quality was NOT a huge concern. That being said, I do enjoy many serials and could recommend a few...just not "The Three Musketeers"!
Despite the name, the serial is about the French Foreign Legion back around 1933. It begins with three soldiers and friends about to be killed by renegades...only to be saved by Tom Wayne (John Wayne) and his airplane. However, soon you realize that almost everyone in the story is extremely stupid...too stupid. When a turncoat is killed by the evil El Shaitan, very badly fabricated evidence is planted implicating Tom for the killing. And, despite his service record AND how bad and unconvincing the evidence is AND that Tom was close friends with the dead guy, suddenly an arrest warrant is issued for him AND the dead man's sister (who is also Tom's girlfriend) suddenly believes Tom is evil and sets out to kill him. Oddly, when she finally catches up to him, he convinces her in about 2 seconds he didn't kill her brother...and she believes it! Huh?! Did the woman have an unsuccessful brain transplant and this might explain her changing her opinions so quickly? And what about the officers in the Legion? Could they be half as stupid as the film portrays them to be?
The bottom line is that apart from a few nice action scenes, to believe the story you must assume everyone is an imbecile...otherwise the story makes no sense. Very bad writing, limp acting and indifferent direction make this a hard serial to finish...and even for the genre it's incredibly weak and unenjoyable.
By the way, many years later this 12-part serial was edited into an incomprehensible mess called "Desert Command". It never makes any sense as most of the film is missing...but it's really no worse than seeing this serial...especially since the heavily trimmed film is so much shorter in duration.
