I don't know why I expected the Richard Lester versions of the 3 Mosquitoes to be serious (released in 1973 and 1974 as The 3 Musketeers and The 4 Musketeers). Silly me, but I was shocked when I started to watch the first movie and saw that the plot was just a clothesline to hang pratfalls on. About 40 minutes into it, I shut it off, ripped the DVD out of the machine, and swore I couldn't watch anymore.
But then I started reading reviews on Netflix and MRQE, and with a couple of exceptions that sounded like my reaction, most of the reviewers got the joke and loved it, calling it the best version of the story ever. So a day later I put the DVDs back in the player and gave it another try.
It was all pratfalls at first with zero character development and joltingly austere Spanish locations including the Cathedral of Toledo and a bunch of Moorish architecture supposed to be Paris and the French countryside, but I confess it eventually started growing on me, especially in the second movie. At first I thought Faye Dunaway terribly miscast as Milady de Winter, but then her sexy, ethereal beauty kicked in and I decided she was perfect for the part. Contrary to the 1966 BBC version (see review below), I could believe that Dunaway could seduce any man that crossed her path.
Same with Charlton Heston as Cardinal Richelieu - possibly at his most handsome and regal and with an underplayed sense of humor. Christopher Lee was perfect as Count de Rochefort. Raquel Welch played Constance Bonacieux as a busty ditz, quite unlike the way she was played in the BBC production, but it works and she is one of the lights of this production. Michael York is no Jeremy Brett, but he was serviceable as D'Artagnan, Richard Chamberlain was a hoot as the dandified Aramis prancing around in his finery, and Oliver Reed and Frank Finlay were fine as Athos and Porthos. I didn't like Geraldine Chaplin as Queen Anne of Austria but it wasn't too big a part.
I wondered how Lester and producer Ilya Salkind would handle the violent second half of the story and was mildly surprised that they played it as written, bloodshed and all. Main characters begin dropping like flies in The 4 Musketeers as in the book. Ultimately the BBC production followed the book more religiously and took the proceedings more seriously, but the Lester version is far more colorful, often laugh-out-loud amusing (as when D'Artagnan and Rochefort attempt a swordfight on a frozen river), boasts weightier actors, especially the much more convincing female leads, and captures the look of the times much better, even if France is made to look like Spain, which it doesn't.
In a very interesting "making of" feature on the DVD set, Salkind allowed as how his intention was to play up the comedy of Dumas's original work. Well, the original Three Musketeers wasn't all that funny, and I don't think comedy was Dumas pere's intention, but I suppose Salkind/Lester's "Monty Python Meets the 3 Mosqueteros" works in any case.
If you're interested, there is a very nicely packaged 2-DVD set available on Amazon containing both movies released as The Complete Musketeers.
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