Our story begins as Karl Marx the Grey, immersed in the act of reading one of Baudelaire's raunchier tomes, is visited by an actor from the set of the Lumière brothers' (eventually abandoned) production of The Three Musketeers. Mistaking Marx for a pimp, d'Artagnan offers a sack of coins for the procurement of a woman.
Marx decides that Baudelaire is boring anyway, makes the book vanish, and decides to have some fun with the hapless thespian. He creates a woman out of thin air whom d'Artagnan immediately tries to molest. However, just before he can lock her in an embrace, Marx banishes the poor girl to the eternal void from which she came.
This sends d'Artagnan into a rage. He stomps around the room gesticulating wildly and draws his sword. He makes several attempts to skewer the father of socialism, but none succeed. Exasperated, he takes a final swipe at the puckish old man, who disappears into a puff of smoke.
At this point, several human-sized Punch and Judy dolls walk into the room and perform an ancient druid ritual to transform d'Artagnan into a Turkish prince.
Now all but utterly defeated and extremely uncomfortable in his new clothes, our hero falls to his knees and prays for divine assistance, which comes in the form of the Queen of Clubs who appears before him. She waves her staff around, which frightens the Punch and Judy dolls, sending them fleeing for the corners of the room. She summons d'Artagnan's lover from the void, who appears in a wedding dress, and then gives him his own spiffy new set of threads.
As our happy couple walk off into the backdrop to be wed, Karl Marx materializes again, but is immediately caged by the Queen of Clubs, quashing socialism in France forever.
THE END
All in all, a nice little movie, but it's a bittersweet treasure knowing that d'Artagnan never made it back to the set of the Lumière film and a potential classic had to be abandoned.
Marx decides that Baudelaire is boring anyway, makes the book vanish, and decides to have some fun with the hapless thespian. He creates a woman out of thin air whom d'Artagnan immediately tries to molest. However, just before he can lock her in an embrace, Marx banishes the poor girl to the eternal void from which she came.
This sends d'Artagnan into a rage. He stomps around the room gesticulating wildly and draws his sword. He makes several attempts to skewer the father of socialism, but none succeed. Exasperated, he takes a final swipe at the puckish old man, who disappears into a puff of smoke.
At this point, several human-sized Punch and Judy dolls walk into the room and perform an ancient druid ritual to transform d'Artagnan into a Turkish prince.
Now all but utterly defeated and extremely uncomfortable in his new clothes, our hero falls to his knees and prays for divine assistance, which comes in the form of the Queen of Clubs who appears before him. She waves her staff around, which frightens the Punch and Judy dolls, sending them fleeing for the corners of the room. She summons d'Artagnan's lover from the void, who appears in a wedding dress, and then gives him his own spiffy new set of threads.
As our happy couple walk off into the backdrop to be wed, Karl Marx materializes again, but is immediately caged by the Queen of Clubs, quashing socialism in France forever.
THE END
All in all, a nice little movie, but it's a bittersweet treasure knowing that d'Artagnan never made it back to the set of the Lumière film and a potential classic had to be abandoned.
