Os Três Mosqueteiros

Let me begin by expressing how refreshing it feels to watch a series of action scenes without wretched shaky cam! After seeing Guardians of the Galaxy and the new Ninja Turtles movies at the cinema recently, I had almost forgotten what it was like to have a comprehensible fight sequence.

This 1973 version of The Three Musketeers is the best version of the story I have ever seen, even better than the over-praised Gene Kelly adaptation. It's athletic, earthy, and light-hearted, paired with one of the most perfect casts ever brought together for a movie and Michel Legrand's amazing score which proves adventurous and heart-achingly romantic in equal turns.

If you love action and comedy, then I cannot recommend this enough. I never wanted it to end and cannot wait to watch the sequel.

This film, and its sequel (filmed concurrently) is by far the best movie version of the Dumas novel ever produced. The cast is excellent. The sets and costumes are marvelous. The swordplay (and there is much) is possible some of the most realistic ever filmed. And it's the only Musketeer movie I am aware of in which the Musketeers actually use muskets. Authenticity seems to have been very important to the producers, as well as staying true to the novel.

Sadly a film like this wouldn't be made these days. First off the fighting would be "punched-up" with a lot of wire work. And of course Hollywood would change the story to eliminate much of the "sleeping around" characters do (today's movie heroes in this type of movie aren't usually sexually active). They would also provide some creative story editing so that a certain character who dies in the novel would survive so as to supply the requisite happy ending. Fortunately for us this version does not suffer that kind of revisionism.

If you're a fan of Dumas or just looking for a fun film with lots of realistic sword fighting then you won't want to miss this.

Alexandre Dumas's classic The Three Musketeers seems to never lose its appeal, it gets another cinema version every generation. In the seventies Richard Lester shot such a long film that producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind decided to release it in two parts. This film only takes us to the point of the affair of the diamond studs.

Michael York is one truly bumptious Gascon in his interpretation of D'Artagnan. Apparently it's a French mantra that people from Gascony are braggarts and quick to fight. I don't know how well that point is known outside the French speaking world, but it's in the strength of Dumas's tale that we Americans even those who haven't studied The Three Musketeers in high school of college English can appreciate that fact. Because of that fact he manages to make all kinds of enemies, the wrong ones and the right ones.

Fortunately the right ones, Athos, Porthos, and Aramis, Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay, and Richard Chamberlain all recognize York's worth and he becomes a companion of The Three Musketeers. The King's own guard, fighting against the encroaching power of France's prime minister Cardinal Richelieu.

Charlton Heston adds to his collection of real historical characters portrayed on film with his interpretation of Richelieu. He was hardly the villain in real life that he is here. As he said on his deathbed that he had no enemies, but the enemies of the state. Richelieu was in fact a great French patriot though as a Cardinal was not terribly pious or scrupulous.

Richelieu was also not a tall man and the six foot two inch Charlton Heston had to stoop over a bit when playing him. Note that carefully when you watch Heston, especially in his scenes with Christopher Lee as Rochefort. Lee does not lack in the height department either.

Three women have substantial roles in The Three Musketeers. Raquel Welch makes a sexy Constance, not quite the innocent that June Allyson played her as in the MGM version with Gene Kelly. Geraldine Chaplin is serene and beautiful, but tragically unloved except by Great Britain's prime minister the Duke of Buckingham {Simon Ward}, France's mortal enemy. Milady DeWinter played by Faye Dunaway is as deadly and beautiful as Lana Turner was in the Gene Kelly film.

Personally I've never thought that Hollywood ever got The Three Musketeers quite right. It will never happen I'm sure, but I'd love to see the operetta that Rudolf Friml wrote the music for, made into a Three Musketeers film. Still this one isn't too bad with an accent more on bawdy comedy than anything else. The followup Four Musketeers takes a more serious turn.

Richard Lester has to be one of the greatest directors of comedy there ever was. There are dozens of slapstick gags and situations in this movie and almost 100% of them work. And what an opulent setting they are placed in! Lester and his cohorts have created a film in which almost every frame resembles a museum painting come to life (and gone berserk.)

Lester is better with style than relating a narrative. I found it impossible to completely comprehend the story line here, and I think if you asked most people what the movie was about, they'd tell you there was a lot of swashbuckling and general mayhem and lunacy, but I doubt they'd give you much of Dumas' story. When the style is this good, however, a little fuzziness on the substance is not a fatal flaw. Still, it might keep this picture from being an all-time classic rather than "just" a most enjoyable film.

Lester is such an auteur that his direction is the main focus of this film even with such an all-star cast. It was a wise decision (actually it seems like a no-brainer) to divide what was originally shot at one time into two films, this one and 'The Four Musketeers.' There really can be too much of a good thing, and even at under two hours, 'The Three Musketeers' threatens to be overwhelming. But on balance this film is great entertainment.

I must admit that I was a fan of the Disney-fied version of "The Three Musketeers" in my misspent youth. The first time I saw it, I was a wide-eyed 12-year-old who thought that Kiefer Sutherland's Athos was IT as far as the character was concerned - that is, until I stumbled across this version of the much-done movie on cable last year. It was then that I watched Oliver Reed breathe a whole new life into the character of Athos with the help of a magnificent supporting cast. I have to say, I never fell off the couch laughing at the Disney version the way I did during the scene at the inn where Porthos and Aramis are attempting to pull Athos out of the well. Moreover, I never felt as though I understood the characters very well until I watched Lester's interpretation and compared it with the text of Dumas. He could not have chosen a finer cast of actors for his movie - Reed is superb as the quiet, thoughtful leader, Finlay is outlandish as Porthos, Chamberlain brings a flair to Aramis, and York seems completely immersed in D'Artangan. Yet great casting aside, the movie would be nothing if Lester had not incorporated the reality of life at court during the Musketeers' time period - the laziness and sheer excess (dogs as chess pieces on the palace lawn, wine fountains, and palace games). The fight scenes are also to be commended. They are not the overly-choreographed dances of Disney's "The Three Musketeers," but rather have a harsh reality to them. (Reed's fighting style is particularly all-out - he uses his entire body as a weapon.) In short, this movie has completely replaced the Disney version for me - as has its "sequel," "The Four Musketeers" (a must-see if you want to get the whole story and watch Porthos find "a new way to disarm himself").