This is a rambunctious rollicking version of the Three Musketeers that annoyed me for much of its running time. It is part of a two-film narrative directed by Richard Lester - the next one being The Four Musketeers. It has a cast that dreams are made of, yet it still irritated me till I just took it for what it was. In terms of the Three Musketeers, I am a classicist. I like it serious and stately. Heroic and romantic. Heroes and villains and political intrigue. God save the Queen and all that. One for all and all for one. The basic template that most Musketeer films have followed was set in the Douglas Fairbank's film in 1921 and this one follows it almost exactly. Except it turns it into a comedy of pratfalls and foolishness. Closer to a parody than an adventure tale. It grated on me I admit till I got the joke. That the Musketeers certainly had bravado but were also buffoons. They succeed not because they are so skillful, but because the opposition is so incompetent. Where you look for some great swordsmanship, you instead get fighting with brooms and spoons and wet towels.  By the end I was sort of into it and should be ready for The Four Musketeers.


D'Artagnan (Michael York) has been sent off to join the Musketeers in Paris by his father (Joss Ackland) looking like the country bumpkin he is on an old yellow horse that is the target of derision wherever he travels. His father also gave him the advice to "fight everyone". Take on every duel. Considering that he isn't really that good a swordsman, perhaps not great advice. In a small town on the outskirts of Paris he takes offence at something the one-eyed Rochefort (Christopher Lee) says about his horse and challenges him to a duel. Rochefort is the head of the Cardinal's Guards - the Cardinal being the always negatively portrayed Richelieu (Charlton Heston). Instead of killing D'Artagnan, he has his men bop him on the head and he rides away. 


In Paris in the Musketeer headquarters he quickly offends three of them - Athos (Oliver Reed), Aramis (Richard Chamberlain) and Porthos (Frank Finlay) leading to the classic set of scheduled duels at 12pm, 1pm and 2 pm. Instead, they all end up fighting the Cardinal Guards and it turns into a goof-ball melee of clotheslines, punching, laundry and general chaos. They all become friends and go drinking and snatching food with their swords - finally some good sword play. D'Artagnan finds lodging in a cheap hostel where the comic owner (Spike Milligan of all people) has a wife Constance (Raquel Welch) that he gets to bed once a week. D'Artagnan equals that the same night with the let me clean your feet opening. He may be a country boy but he knows what he likes. Constance is a total klutz - tripping over everything that can be tripped over, hitting her head on everything that can hit your head.


The film continues down the traditional path - the Queen (Geraldine Chaplin) is having an affair with the English Duke of Buckingham (Simon Ward) and gives him her diamond necklace as a keepsake. Richelieu hears about it and sets the conniving Milady (Faye Dunaway) to steal two of the diamonds. Easy as taking the pants off a man. The King (Jean-Pierre Cassell) asks the Queen to wear the necklace at a celebration. She is at a loss until her handmaiden Constance tells her she has the man for the assignment - her husband who is unknown to her in the pay of the Cardinal - no wait how about D'Artagnan and off he goes with the Three Musketeers for more misbegotten adventure.


It is a big production, looks great and throws in some fun historical bits such as the King playing chess on a giant board using dogs as chess pieces or the Musketeers playing "real tennis" which has two opponents on each side of the net but then like handball you can hit the walls. Looks like good fun. Back in the 1960s this was considered as a vehicle for the Beatles with Lester - who had directed them in A Hard Day's Night and Help - directing. And songs I assume. That would have been interesting and likely awful. Ringo as D'Artagnan? The music was composed by the great Michel Legrand and it was shot in Segovia, Spain about the loveliest town in the world. Raquel who gives a very cute comedic performance got the Golden Global.

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The Four Musketeers
Director: Richard Lester
Year: 1974
Rating: 7.5

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This is more like it. I don't know if someone told the director Richard Lester that The Three Musketeers had too much corny bumbling humor in it and not enough serious sword play, but this follow-up made with the exact same cast is terrific. It leaves all but a bit of playful humor on the wayside and provides a fine example of old-fashioned heroic adventure in which the Musketeers take on the evils of Cardinal Richelieu, Rochefort and their weapon of deception, the beautiful Milady.


It closely follows the book as did the first film and in this case that is a good thing. Dumas wrote a rousing tale of adventure - why mess with a classic. It is set in the 1640s with France in the middle of a religious civil war - the Catholics against the Protestants and the Musketeers are in the middle of it in a siege of a Protestant castle. But besides that, other nefarious plots are afoot to kill D'Artagnan and his love Constance. Milady wants revenge from the previous film. It takes a very serious turn at the end which I expect the audience did not see coming but again it is right out of the book.


It has less of a complicated plot than the first where the Musketeers had to save the Queen from a scandal - very straightforward with one small disconnect. No one seems to remember Milady from the first film and to know how treacherous she is. D'Artagnan beds her (as well as her maid), Constance doesn't recognize her though they had quite a duel in the first film and Athos who had a previous encounter with her pre-the book didn't recognize her in the first film though she walks right by him. Constance is still the Queen's handmaiden and the carrier of messages to the Duke of Buckingham. Richelieu decides to kidnap her for reasons that are a little murky and much of the film is of the Musketeers rescuing her, hiding her and then attempting to rescue her again. In between that they are fighting in a war. It never slows down and is everything the first film should have been.

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