This silent era classic was based on the swashbuckling adventure novel by Rafael Sabatini, the author whose works later inspired such renowned genre favorites as
Captain Blood (1935) and
The Sea Hawk (1940). Andre Moreau (Roman Novarro) is a law student during the time of the brewing French Revolution who politically supports his dissatisfied fellow citizens. During a confrontation with the Marquis de la Tour d'Azyr (
Lewis Stone), a feared nobleman sympathetic to the royalist cause, the blue blood murders Andre's agitator friend. Unable to engage in swordplay against the legendary prowess of the Marquis, Andre vows revenge and joins a local circus troupe, hiding behind the guise of Scaramouche, a clown, while training in the art of fencing with a master. Andre also falls in love with a woman smitten by the dashing Marquis, but she returns to the troupe when she learns of the nobleman's infidelity. As political unrest boils over into rebellion, Moreau and the Marquis cross steel.
Scaramouche (1923) was remade often, most notably in 1952, which features the cinema's longest sword battle and costarred Stone in a different role.
