Customer Reviews

Three Musketeers

5 star:		(14)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Filmed in 1973, the one that began it all. The book was actually split into two movies to fit all the plot! This is the first half of the book. An amazing, star-studded cast, great attention to detail and it's funny to boot!

Let's see. Oliver Reed as Athos, Richard Chamberlain as Aramis, Frank Finlay as Porthos, Michael York as D'Artagnan. Christopher Lee, Raquel Welch, Geraldine Chaplin, Faye Dunaway. Just about every performance is amazing.

This has the REAL plot - not the entirely made-up one Disney foisted on us. D'Artagnan is cheating on his landlord with his landlord's wife. The Queen of France is cheating on her husband, the King, with the Duke of Buckingham. The cardinal is trying to gain power of France. The Musketeers gladly steal food and cheat when necessary. It's a rough world out there!

The attention to detail in the film is simply amazing. From the stunning costumes, to the silver-and-white ball at the end, to the interiors of the buildings, to the food they eat, wine they drink, games they play - it's all fully authentic. You could watch this in a history class and learn quite a bit.

And the swordfighting!! None of this pretentious sword-waving and back-flipping. These guys were professional soldiers. They fought to win. This involved rough-and-tumble brawl tactics at times. I compare Athos' fighting style to Aragorn's in Lord of the Rings. His aim was to stay alive and to keep his comerades alive, not to look pretty when he fought.

Now for the BIG WARNING. I wore out several copies of the video tape before getting this on the first DVD available. Fox Lorber put out the DVD version. I was thrilled to have it on DVD. I was less thrilled when I saw what they did to the movie!! They literally cut off ALL FOUR EDGES of the movie, losing quite a lot of the picture. The special features are completely missing. There is a new DVD version out which is a two-pack of "The Three Musketeers" and "The Four Musketeers" that has the special features and has the full version of both movies without missing content. AVOID THE FOX LORBER VERSION and get the other one.

Richard Lester's The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers deserved a state of the art transfer, in correct aspect ratio, a director's commentary, and a full range of access features. Fox-Lorber didn't even bother to give us the correct aspect ratio!

The film is presented in a 1:66 that lops off information from what may have been a 1:85 image. This is unbelievable!

Richard Lester's The Three and Four Musketeers together comprise one of the most memorable films of the 1970's. They are as fresh now as they were in their original theatrical release. They deserved the kind of treatment that The Criterion Collection has given other acknowledged classics. They certainly deserved better than the miserable results that Fox-Lorber has served up.

If you are as offended by what Fox-Lorber has done as I am, then let me urge you to write to them and voice your complaints.

Although several other reviewers have pointed out the aspect ratio problems with the Fox-Lorber version of this DVD, I wanted to add my own comments on the off chance that it will convince others to avoid buying, or even renting, this version.

This is one of my favorite movies, and after seeing it hacked to pieces on network TV, I couldn't wait to show my kids a classic treatment of a classic book. Initially we were disappointed in the sparseness of the DVD itself: No subtitles; what seemed to be a monaural soundtrack; and no commentary or additional features such as trailers, promos, or background on the film.

But then we started watching and even my kids realized that we were watching a widescreen movie with the left and right portions of the image cut off. This wasn't even pan-and-scan. This was an outrageously lazy transfer from widescreen to standard format showing only the center of the horizontal image. And there are these mysterious black bars above and below, as if someone meant us to think that we were watching the widescreen version. But they merely cut off parts of the image on the top and the bottom of the screen. What were they thinking?

The movie is still great. Everyone in the family enjoyed it. But everyone was also very disappointed that a movie studio would do something so inept and insensitive to its customers. I was more than disappointed. I was stunned and angry.

For now, buy the VHS version. The DVD is an unmitigated disaster.

Collectors have wanted The Three Musketeers (1974) and The Four Musketeers (1975) on disc for years, so it's nice that these titles are finally available, but this Fox-Lorber release is not up to the standards of the best DVDs.

This 2-part version of the classic Dumas tale was directed by Richard Lester (A Hard Day's Night) and includes a lot of his trademark slapstick, along with elegant production design, lots of action and a truly all-star cast. The Three Musketeers is the breezier of the two films, with an outstanding performance by Raquel Welch as a klutzy heroine.

Although this title is priced at $29.95, it is presented in a bare-bones format, without even a listing of the chapter numbers. The video quality is inconsistent, ranging from very good to fair. The image is letterboxed at 1.66:1, but it appears to have been cropped from 1.85:1, causing people to disappear from the edges of the screen. It has not been enhanced for 16:9 TVs. The monaural audio is average.

If you like The Three Musketeers, you'll have to decide whether to go with this somewhat inferior version or hope that a better version comes along later.

This film, originally released in 1972 and re-released on video in 1998, is the best interpretation of the Alexander Dumas novel ever made. The movie cast list reads like "Who's Who of American Cinematography for the 1970's," but suffice to say all of the performances are excellent. Of particular note is the incredibly powerful and subtle performance of Charleton Heston as Cardinal Richelieu, or the sympathetic and sorrowful role of Athos/Comte de le Fere as portrayed by Oliver Reed. This movie is crammed full of historically accurate costumes, tools, weapons, inventions, buildings, books, food, etc. It is a veritable history lesson in a most palatable form. The fight choreography, employed masterfully by William Hobbes, makes this film an example for every theater/renaissance faire fight student. Lastly, the movie remains true to many of the details of the book that other versions gloss over, like the fact that D'Artagnon is plainly having an affair with the wife of his landlord, not the daughter, as portrayed in earlier films. Interestingly enough, the sequel to this movie, "The Four Musketeers," was never designed to be such. The producer, Alexander Salkind, chose to release a second film, rather than cut any parts out of the story. The actors, however, were only paid for one film, resulting in "The Salkind Clause," held in all modern movie contracts that states that the actor is being paid for one film, and one film only. If you buy no other films in 1998, buy this and it's sequel. END

This movie has it all: action, adventure, comedy. The cast is outstanding and it brings out some of the best performances in some individuals careers like Michael York, Rachael Welch, and Richard Chamberland. The direction by Richard Lester is excellent.

Based on the Alexandre Dumas novel, this film is the best adaptation ever. It is so far superior than the "brat pack" version with Sutherland, Curry, and Sheen, that one wonders why another version was even attempted.

The story begins with D'Artagnan setting off to be a musketeer. He ends up being an embarrashment and has three duels, with the The Musketeers, played by Oliver Reed, Chamberland, and Frank Finely (Finely, in my opinion, gives the best performance in the movie). Because of the Cardinal's guards, the four unite and soon, they are friends going off to England to save the Queen's honor and stop the evil plot of Cardinal Richelieu (played by Charleton Heston).

This movie is a true blast and is followed up by "The Four Musketeers" where Milady (played by Fay Dunaway) tries to bring the ruin of D'Artagan.

The praise heaped on the splendid retelling of "The Three Musketeers", its cast, crew and director are all well deserved, to be sure. However, the lion's share of credit should go to George MacDonald Frasier, who lovingly translated the long, dense original novel to a cinematic form that is both intensely entertaining and startlingly faithful to the source material. Frasier is the author of the "Flashman" historical novels as well, and fans of the 3 & 4 Musketeers are well advised to take a flyer on Flashy. Much of the same mixture of scrupulous history and unscrupulous comedy can be found there.

This is one of those movies I just don't get tired watching. And every time I do watch it (having first seen it in the theater at age 8), I find myself overlooking the appalling, horrific conditions of 17th century France to wish I were one of these capable, independent, honorable, heroic, and really totally cooly dressed men. As so magically portrayed by the screenplay, the costuming, the cinematography, and actors, the story was and remains totally enthralling. It just looks like so much fun, despite the dangers.

From the enthralling slow-motion opening credits, with their evocative title fonts and matching yet almost haunting sound accompaniment, you know you are in for a thorough well-done and promising film.

The women look absolutely fantastic, every single one of them, even the hand maidens, even (most) of the peasant women. Most of the men also look fantastic in their meticulously recreated costumes, especially the musketeers. Whether the costuming and overall placement of the movie is historically accurate I am not qualified to address, but the look and feel of the film is consistent throughout and deeply, richly presented. A great deal of this comes from the cinematography, the film treatment and other technical details as well, further testament to the expertise of these filmmakers.

Attention to detail is precise and meticulous throghout the film. This is best shown with interior shots, such as the book carousel in the musketeer captain's office, the games of chance inside the cabaret/club, and D'Artagnan's dank lodgings. The portrayal of contemporaneous technology is also very well-done, as shown by the periscopes (with its upside-down rendering of the image), the lift outside the musketeer captain's office, and the Queen's servant-driven carousel.

The fight scenes are exhilarating and earthy, with rapiers and foils used as clubs and even thrown as distractions, with good old fashioned hand-to-hand mixed in very well. The debonair swordplay of the traditional, Fairbanks-era swashbucklers is absent; the fights are staged to communicate to the viewer that all fighters are consummate swordsmen. The fight settings also are inspired, ranging from a convent courtyard, a laundry, a crowded roadside tavern, and the inspired lantern-illuminated pitch-black of a nighttime country road.

The story is surprisingly complex; its Macchiavellian twists require some attention. The film does move along well enough without a full understanding of the details of the plot, but is much better enjoyed if one knows the characters' motivations and goals.

The comedic aspects of the film are probably the most endearing and best-remembered. There is plenty of physical slapstick, such as D'Artagnan jumping out of a window onto a rising work platform, assassins dropping blindly from a tree, Porthos' post-duel sliced hat, etc. Taking the comedy a step further are the short, anonymous asides by extras and fringe characters. This is best illustrated by the hilarious passageway mutterings of the dwarves (just observed in the previous scene with trays of food fastened to the tops of their heads), with one of the little guys muttering something about punching someone in the throat. This technique is highly reminiscent of the street-scene asides so well done in the film adaptation of the Broadway comedy "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way To The Forum." Both the physical comedy and the asides come together near the end, with the palace servants muttering, "He tore our carpet" after D'Artagnan unsucessfully attempts the traditional swashbuckling pull-the-rug-out maneuver during his attempt to enter the palace.

I strongly recommend this film to anyone and everyone, especially those with a taste for a less-than-serious approach to adventure. The film is great, great fun. For anyone who has seen and enjoyed this film, I strongly recommend the original novel by Alexandre Dumas, which is available as an FTP online.

Forget Disney, forget the Hong Kong-ified "Musketeer." This version of Alexandre Dumas' book is the best, and closest to the source material, without taking it too seriously. Directed by Richard Lester ("Hard Day's Night") and exuberantly acted by a fantastic cast, "The Three Musketeers" is actually the first part of the story. For the entire thing, you'll need to also watch "The Four Musketeers."

Michael York plays D'Artagnan, a would-be musketeer who quickly runs afoul of, then befriends Athos, Porthos and Aramis, portrayed respectively by Oliver Reed (one of his best performances), Frank Finlay, and once-and-future miniseries king Richard Chamberlain. Sword fights and brawls ensue, along with some political intrigue. It seems the Cardinal Richelieu (an excellent, subtly menacing, and all-together statesman-like Charlton Heston) has it in for the Queen (Geraldine Chaplin) and her lover, the Duke of Buckingham (Simon Ward). Well, no wonder- she's married to the King of France, and he's the Prime Minister of England, France's Number One enemy!

Aiding Richelieu are one-eyed swordsman/spy Rochefort (Christopher Lee... yeah!) and Lady De Winter (an icy Faye Dunaway, at the height of her gorgeousity). On D'Artagnan's side are his trusty and much-abused servant Planchet (Roy Kinnear) and Constance (Raquel Welch... man, this movie just gets better and better!).

Lester and his cast have a rollicking good time, and although the emphasis is on humor (some of the background bits are a little stale after all these years) and satire, there's plenty of high adventure, swashbuckly-type stuff. The sets are very impressive, and it all seems to have been filmed with natural light. The cinematography gives many scenes the look of a Rembrandt painting. Docked a star for not including extras, but "The Three Musketeers" and its follow-up are DVDs well-worth viewing.

Look for comedian Spike Milligan as Welch's devious husband, Sybill Danning, Finlay in a second role, and Honor Blackman.

Richard Lester's refreshingly breezy adaptation of the Dumas classic is one of the best interpretations of this venerable classic. He combines the elements of swashbuckling swordplay with the satirical buffooneries of the Pink Panther movies. Michael York, scrawny yet efficient, plays D'artagnan with a youthful exuberance. Raquel Welch is hilarious as the bumbling, accident prone Constance, and Spike Milligan is likewise a hoot as her aging and lustful husband. The Musketeers are played by Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay and Richard Chamberlain, and are dashingly heroic, if a little out of shape? Faye Dunaway is cold and calculating as the Lady DeWinter while Geraldine Chaplin is quite coquettish as the Queen. Rounding out the marvelous cast are Charlton Heston, Christopher Lee, Simon Ward and Jean Pierre Cassel. Lester filmed this and its sequel (The Four Musketeers) at the same time, but the studio opted to go with a sequel as the whole movie would have been too long. They are both fine films, although the follow up is a little darker in tone. Well worth viewing for a good time.