Last year I read Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers for the first time, as best I remember, which got me interested in seeing the best film version(s). After checking various online sources I concluded the best two were the 1966 ten-part BBC television series starring Jeremy Brett as D'Artagnan (available on Netflix), and the two-movie version released as The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers.
I finished watching the BBC series tonight, and despite being in black and white with rather low production values and some suspect casting, it is nevertheless quite enjoyable. Jeremy Brett dominates the production. I've always thought he was the best Sherlock Holmes, so I was interested to see what he looked like at the age of 33. He is dashing, passionate, and a credible D'Artagnan. YouTube has a nice clip of Brett as D'Artagnan.
The other actors are competent but unfortunately rather forgettable, except for Pauline Collins as Kitty, who was deliciously memorable in a lesser role, and perhaps Mary Peach as the deliciously nasty femme fatale, Milady de Winter. But Peach, while appropriately psychotic, isn't as believable as a femme fatale. It may be that a 16th century French or English male would find her attractive, but besides oozing evil she didn't do much for me.
I read on the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) that this production was filmed live with no special effects, which does indeed add to the stature of this version, and I must agree with a reviewer on IMDb that character development is one of its strong points.
Let's hope Milady is better cast in Richard Lester's 1973 version I will watch next.
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