The Three Musketeers (1973)

The Three Musketeers
Directed by Richard Lester
Written by George McDonald Frasier from the novel by Alexandre Dumas
1973/US/UK
IMDb page
Repeat viewing/Amazon Prime (free to members)

Lady de Winter: Your Eminence is a great player. Great enough to lose. I do not like to lose.
Cardinal Richelieu: You must suit yourself, Milady. But, if in the end you should, do it with a becoming grace.

Richard Lester’s version of the old story is a mixture of derring do with slapstick comedy and simply sumptuous production values.

The story takes place during the reign of Louis XIII.  Young D’Artagnon (Michael York) lives in the country with his father, an ex-Musketeer to the King.  He is sent off with his father’s old sword as an introduction to the current Musketeers Athos (Oliver Reed), Porthos (Frank Finlay) and Aramis (Richard Chamberlin).  He challenges each man to a duel.  This is interrupted by guards enforcing the law against dueling. At any rate, D’Artagnon is rejected as a Musketeer until he has proved himself  in combat.  But they do allow him to hang out with them.

D’Artagnan takes lodging with an old man who is married to Constance (Raquel Welch) dressmaker  to the Queen (Geraldine Chaplin).  Constance is fiercely loyal to the Queen and helps facilitate her assignations with the Duke of Buckingham.  Buckingham asks for a memento to take back to England and the Queen gives him an exquisite set of 12 diamond studs that had been a gift from the king.

Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston) and his spies Rochefort (Christopher Lee) and Milady De Winter (Faye Dunaway) have been waiting for just such an opportunity.  A word to the King and the Queen is required to wear them at the next ball.  D’Artagnan is on the next ship to England to retrieve the jewels. I’ll stop there.

I saw this on original release and it was as fun now as it was then.  My plot summary does not reflect the huge amount of swordplay throughout the film.  Lester always keeps the fights interesting.  Then there is a healthy dose of slapstick mostly provided by Raquel Welch who does prat falls like a trooper.  The locations and costumes are incredible.

The cast thought it was making one movie but the studio carved it into two – this and The Four Musketeers (1974).  The cast thought in that case they should receive two salaries. One reason may be that Lester’s shooting method (multiple cameras) meant stunt work had to be kept to a minimum.  Virtually every member of the cast that fought was injured and Oliver Reed was nearly killed when he was accidentally stabbed in the neck.

Print on Amazon Prime is much sharper