Review: The Four Musketeers

Newly minted Musketeer D’Artagnan (a dashing Michael York) and his fellow Musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis (played by a brooding Oliver Reed, gregarious Frank Finlay, and dandified Richard Chamberlain) find themselves engaged in a battle between King Louis’ (Jean-Pierre Cassel) forces and a band of protestant rebels, that temporarily sees the Musketeers having to rescue an old enemy-turned spy (Christopher Lee’s dastardly henchman Rochefort) from certain death. But it’s not long before the one-eyed swordsman and his scheming lover Milady De Winter (Faye Dunaway) are back to their wicked ways, seeking revenge on D’Artagnan in particular, for events from the previous film. Meanwhile, the master manipulator Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston) sits on the sidelines, pulling the strings from afar. Geraldine Chaplin and Simon Ward are back as Queen Anne and her lover The Duke of Buckingham. Roy Kinnear is in fine form as bumbling servant Planchet, and Raquel Welch once again stars as the prat-falling Constance, D’Artagnan’s love.

 

This 1974 Richard Lester (“Help!”, “Juggernaut”, “Robin and Marian”, “Superman II”) swashbuckling romp was intended to be part of one larger film along with the previous “The Three Musketeers”, filmed at the same time. The resultant split into two shorter films caused disgruntled cast members (unhappy at being paid only for the one film) to sue the director. They won their case, though were still not paid as much as if they had been paid for two separate films. Christopher Lee’s autobiography doesn’t mention whether he was one of the disgruntled actors, but most movie buffs tend to assume that he’d have to have been among the most vocal. It sounds like something he’d take umbrage with, and fair enough in my view. The abundance of footage makes the subsequent separation a logical choice but Disney director Stephen Herek managed to get the nuts and bolts of the story into his singular “The Three Musketeers” just fine in 1993 in my view. So I don’t blame the actors for being upset. The funny thing is, that with all this background hoopla, the film itself isn’t all that much better or worse in quality than the previous film. I might put this one just a nose ahead.

 

This one benefits from the reliably evil pairing of Lee and a Satanic-eyed Faye Dunaway, who are both excellent villains. The relations between these characters and the musketeers are among the film’s strongest moments, even more so than last time. Lee’s Rochefort is one (or three, if you consider that this is part two of a trilogy) of his very best roles and performances. Dunaway is everything you want in Milady de Winter; Stunning, seductive, evil-eyed, scheming, tempestuous. So strong are Lee and Dunaway that they manage to pick up some of Heston’s slack. Again miscast as Cardinal Richelieu, the imposing but utterly hopeless Heston totally botches his part. It’s a role he plays far too dour and serious, a role that should’ve gone to any number of other, more capable actors; Anton Diffring, Donald Pleasence (too short?), Sir Peter Ustinov, Frank Thring, Peter Cushing, etc. Unable to have any fun with it or to stand out positively, Heston certainly pales in comparison to Vincent Price and Tim Curry in the 1948 and 1993 versions of “The Three Musketeers”. Having said that, with Rochefort and Milady de Winter gaining prominence here, Richelieu isn’t really meant to be the chief villain in this one, so there’s that too. Odd-looking Geraldine Chaplin is the weakest link in the Anne-Louis-Buckingham triangle. Only the solid Simon Ward’s handsome Buckingham registers among those three in my view. In fact, Chaplin’s frankly unsympathetic in a role I think we were meant to warm to a bit. I didn’t find her unsympathetic in the previous film, which is strange. Raquel Welch, a comic highlight in the first film isn’t given as much screen time here, but is still very funny, and extremely easy on the eyes. She’s a good sport in the slapstick realm, whilst her final scene with Dunaway is very memorable and shocking too. Speaking of those two, added with notorious hard-drinking Reed, this must’ve been quite the set to be on. Even though I love Gene Kelly’s interpretation of the dashing young Musketeer, York is still the cinema’s best D’Artagnan to date, even if York registered a bit more strongly in the previous film. Oliver Reed too is the best-ever Athos. It’s a role he was born for- a brooding, brawling alcoholic! It allows him to show what an underrated, impassioned actor he could be in the right role and the right frame of mind. Richard Chamberlain doesn’t get much of a good showing this time out as Aramis, but is still well-cast. It’s taken a while for me to warm to Frank Finlay’s Porthos, but while he’s not as funny as Oliver Platt in the Herek/Disney version, he’s a better and more convincing actor in the role. Look out for small but solid appearances by Jack Watson and Michael Gothard, the latter of whom is quite memorable in short time as an unwitting pawn in Milady de Winter’s evil scheme. Lester regular and perennial scene-stealer Roy Kinnear is a hoot in a few scenes of low comedy. His facial reaction to being felt up and his struggling with luggage amidst gunfire are particularly hilarious. I’m not the biggest fan of Lester’s brand of comedy, but most of it works here.

 

The swordplay is awesome. How could it not be with the cinema’s most prolific swordfighter Christopher Lee, racking up at least 17 screen duels and counting (according to Lee’s autobiography)? There’s an especially spectacular duel on ice with lots of fumbling about, making it hard for even the best of swordsmen to buckle their swash! The production values are exemplary, as is the top music score by Lalo Schifrin (“Cool Hand Luke”, “Bullitt”, “The Cincinnati Kid”), some of his best work.

 

This is a good film, better than the previous one by a hair. The characterisation and story are better and the tone much, much darker. Still, I find myself agreeing that it was unfair to split the story into two, short-changing the actors, because it’s really Lester’s fault (and the screenwriter’s) for waffling on unnecessarily. It works as two films, but it needn’t have been that way. Lester could’ve trimmed the fat here, surely. Scripted by George MacDonald Fraser (“The Three Musketeers”, “Octopussy”, “Red Sonja”), it is a bit less focused on the yuks and pratfalls this time, but very amusing when the occasion calls for it nonetheless. Even the normally very serious Christopher Lee gets in a good, witty line or two. Good fun.

 

Rating: B-