The Three Musketeers Double Feature: 1916 and 1921 Versions (Silent)

First published in 1844, Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers quickly became a sensation all over the world. The novel tells the tale of young Gascon D'Artagnan, who travels to Paris to join the king's Musketeers. With the dawn of cinema, filmmakers immediately realized that Dumas' book would translate perfectly to the new medium, with the first film adaptation arriving in 1903.

THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1921): The first big-budget adaptation of Dumas' book made in America, the 1921 version of The Three Musketeers stars screen legend Douglas Fairbanks as D'Artagnan. Fairbanks had previously played a mild-mannered man who imagined himself to be D'Artagnan in the comedy A Modern Musketeer (1917). The popularity of that film's dream sequences convinced Fairbanks that audiences wanted to see him as the actual character. Another contributing factor was the success of The Mark of Zorro (1920), in which Fairbanks had played a swashbuckling adventurer. Making an early screen appearance is actor Adolphe Menjou as Louis XIII. Directed By: Fred Niblo

THE THREE MUSKETEERS (1916): The rare 1916 version of The Three Musketeers was supervised by pioneering film producer Thomas H. Ince. Made in 1915 under the auspices of Kay-Bee Pictures, the film sat on the shelf for a year due to litigation involving the Dumas estate. It finally found release under the name D'Artagnan in 1916 from Ince's newly-formed Triangle Studios. Though credited to Ince in publicity materials of the time, the film was actually directed by Charles Swickard, best known for the William S. Hart western Hell's Hinges (1916). The film was finally re-released under its original title of The Three Musketeers in 1921 to compete with the Douglas Fairbanks remake.

• silent