Review: The Three Musketeers

Leaving his swordsman father (Joss Ackland) behind, a wannabe Musketeer named D’Artagnan (Michael York) ventures off to Paris where he inadvertently upsets three such Musketeers in Aramis (Richard Chamberlain), Athos (Oliver Reed), and Porthos (Frank Finlay). Meanwhile, the scheming Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston) conspires with the treacherous Milady De Winter (Faye Dunaway) to disclose the affair between Queen Anne (Geraldine Chaplin) and the English Duke of Buckingham (Simon Ward) for the Cardinal’s selfish reasons. Christopher Lee plays Rochefort the Cardinal’s ‘Living Blade’, Jean-Pierre Cassel is the foppish King Louis, Raquel Welch plays D’Artagnan’s clumsy love interest Constance, with Spike Milligan playing Constance’s elderly father. Rounding out the cast we have Roy Kinnear as the comical servant Planchet, Michael Gothard as a puritan servant of The Duke, and Francis de Wolff has a walk-on as a ship captain.

 

Slapstick-action director Richard Lester (“Help!”, “The Four Musketeers”, “Superman II”) brings his unique vision to this 1973 version of the Alexandre Dumas tale, arguably the most well-regarded big-screen version. Personally I’m more partial to the 1948 and underrated 1993 versions, and might even slightly prefer Lester’s subsequent “The Four Musketeers” to this one. However, there’s lots of fun to be had here and a mostly very fine cast has been assembled.

 

Particularly excellent here are Michael York, Christopher Lee, Faye Dunaway, and Oliver Reed. York makes for an excellent, dashing D’Artagnan, possibly the screen’s best to date. Dunaway was simply born to play the treacherous seductress Milady DeWinter, though she gets more screen time in the subsequent “The Four Musketeers” (subtitled ‘Milady’s Revenge’ for a reason). Reed is pitch-perfect as the hard-drinking, moody Athos, he takes the role seriously without being dour and dreary like Van Heflin in the 1948 version. Dressed like Captain Hook, veteran of many a Hollywood swordfight Lee has fun as the deadly and arrogant henchman Rochefort. Meanwhile, for comic relief we get the very funny Spike Milligan and Roy Kinnear stealing their every moment. Even Raquel Welch shows some surprising comedy skills, especially in the pratfalling department. I also don’t know how she manages to deliver a line like ‘My husband is just a weak man troubled with wind’ with a straight face. Richard Chamberlain is well-cast as the rather dandified Aramis, and although the subsequent “The Four Musketeers” gives him a better showing, Frank Finlay is fine as Porthos. Simon Ward also makes for a solid Duke of Buckingham.

 

Then we come to Charlton Heston, Geraldine Chaplin, and Jean-Pierre Cassel, and this is where we have a few issues. Of the three, Chaplin probably comes off best as Queen Anne. The issue is that while her performance isn’t terrible, she looks so peculiar and alien-like that she’s distracting. What does the dashing and handsome Buckingham see in this odd duck? OK, she’s royalty, but still, the poor girl looks anaemic. As the corrupt, power-hungry Cardinal Richelieu, a glum-looking Charlton Heston is all wrong. I’m not sure if Heston felt uncomfortable playing a religious villain, but in a role that has been expertly played elsewhere by Vincent Price and Tim Curry, Heston brings all the wrong kind of energy or a lack thereof to be more precise, and as his more gleefully villainous henchman, Christopher Lee constantly steals scenes from him. Heston just isn’t any fun in a role where some real fun ham is required. The worst cast member of all is Jean-Pierre Cassel as King Louis, though it might not be entirely the actor’s fault. He’s been dubbed and frankly rendered a bit of a waste of time. Richard Briers did the dubbing and gives such a one-note, overly foppish, plummy portrayal that it is rather juvenile in a film that otherwise gets the comedy mostly right.

 

On the plus side, Lester gets the action right with an excellent night duel with D’Artagnan and Rochefort involving lamps and the sounds of the forest (and a wonderfully hammy Roy Kinnear). What I love about the duels is that in addition to being amusing, Lester makes sword-fighting seem very difficult, and not always very dashing. Reed’s Athos in particular looks puffed out about 20 minutes into the film. The costuming is also a strong point of the film, in fact the entire production looks wonderful.

 

This and the subsequent “The Four Musketeers” were initially one film that has been segmented into two. This was done without the knowledge of the cast, who were rightly pissed off at the producing Salkind family having being paid for one film’s work, not two. It also has the added defect of this film ending rather anti-climactically. It feels a touch underdone and deflated in the end. Both this and “The Four Musketeers” are enjoyable, handsomely-mounted comedy-adventures. However, I might prize the second film just a tad higher, the pacing and characterisation are a little bit superior. Still a jolly good romp, even if it was truly shitty to split one film into two without informing the cast. They were justifiably irate. Based on the Alexandre Dumas epic, the screenplay is by George MacDonald Fraser (“The Four Musketeers”, “Red Sonja”).

 

Rating: B-