Reviews of silent film releases on home video. Copyright © 1999-2025 by Carl Bennett and the Silent Era Company. All Rights Reserved.

A Modern Musketeer (1917)

This comedy-drama, directed by Allan Dwan, stars Douglas Fairbanks and Marjorie Daw, with Kathleen Kirkham, Frank Campeau, Eugene Ormonde, Tully Marshall and Edythe Chapman.

Fairbanks previews his role in The Three Musketeers (1921) in a historical introduction this contemporary story of go-getter Ned Thacker of Kansas who is constantly in trouble while coming to the rescue of damsels in distress — whether they want it or not.

Apparently, Thacker is chivalrous because his mother was reading Dumas’ novel The Three Musketeers before his birth and was smitten with D’Artagnon. (This hairbrained thinking is also reflected in theories that animalistic and sadistic men were the result of their mothers being prenatally terrorized by gorillas.)

Materialistic mother (Kirkham) is using her daughter Elsie (Daw) to attract the monied Forrest Vandeteer (Ormonde) to financially rescue their family, not realizing that he only seeks to lecherously possess Elsie. Vandeteer proposes Elsie join him on a cross-country automobile tour, which she rejects and her mother promptly accepts.

Meanwhile, Ned is tearing up his small Kansas town with restless ADHD energy and his father encourages him to leave to persue his destiny (read, get rid of him ASAP). Ned soon encounters the touring party stranded by a washed out gully. Resourceful Ned converts his old Ford for rail travel and gallantly delivers them to the (real) El Tovar Hotel at the Grand Canyon.

Chin-de-dah, a renegade native (Campeau), seeks to kidnap a white woman from the hotel to imprison her in his cliff-dweller ruins for his own nefarious purposes. Of course, his sights are set upon Elsie (couldn’t take her mother instead, could he?). Soon the scumbag is hired by the scumbag to guide his party on a riding tour to remote parts of the canyon. In another accident of coincidence, James Brown, a fugitive from New York (Marshall) hiding out in Chin-de-dah’s gang, recognizes Vandeteer and warns Ned of impending danger.

The only way for Ned to get to Chin-de-dah’s hideout without being ambushed on the trail is to go straight down into the canyon (which gives Fairbanks an excuse to exhibit his daredevil feats). Arriving at the hideout before the riding party, Ned neutralizes gang members and Brown confronts Vandeteer for the fraud that made him a fugitive, dangling Vandeteer over the edge of the canyon wall above the Coloradio River by a single thin rope. Ned intervenes in time to get written confessions from the frightened polygamist Vandeteer and win the heart of Elsie.

Improbable as it may be, the film is a fun romp with Fairbanks shining in his early cinematic prime. Hold onto your seat as Doug performs a couple of hair-raising daredevil climbing feats. It is of note that this 1917 film uses the term “flapper” in an intertitle, a word we generally associate with the roaring twenties.

— Carl Bennett

This DVD edition has been mastered from a 35mm restoration print held by Det Danske Filminstitut, with inserts from another Danish print. This cooperative restoration of Det Danske Filminstitut, The Museum of Modern Art and Lobster Films is one of the highlights of the Fairbanks boxset. The restoration print contains a moderate amount of dust, speckling, emulsion scuffing and vertical scratches, uncorrected frame instability, and other minor print flaws. One of the clearest presentations in the set amongst too many regretably older, substandard analog video transfers, this edition is a pleasure to watch.

The film is accompanied by an excellent musical score arranged by Rodney Sauer and performed by The Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra.

Supplemental material includes a 32-page booklet with film notes by Jeffrey Vance and Tony Maietta; production stills and pressbook reproductions; an audio essay for A Modern Musketeer by Vance and Maietta; and a reproduction of Fairbanks’ first film contract. This boxset collection won an award at Il Cinema Ritrovato in 2009 for excellence.

This is our recommended home video edition of the film.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD edition is available directly from . . .

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting music sources.

Probably not a great presentation.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available from ALPHA VIDEO through . . .

The film is likely accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting music recordings.

For now, this is our recommended home video edition of the film.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .