The Three Musketeers (1973 film)

Infobox Film
name = The Three Musketeers

---

caption = 1974 movie poster
director = Richard Lester
producer = Alexander Salkind
Ilya Salkind
Pierre Spengler
writer = George MacDonald Fraser
based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas, père
starring = Oliver Reed
Charlton Heston
Raquel Welch
Faye Dunaway
Richard Chamberlain
Frank Finlay
Michael York
Christopher Lee
music = Michel Legrand
cinematography = David Watkin
editing =
distributor = 20th Century Fox
released = flagicon|France December 11, 1973
flagicon|USA March 29, 1974
runtime = 105 min.
country = UK / US
awards =
language = English
budget =
preceded_by =
followed_by = "The Four Musketeers"
amg_id = 1:49690
imdb_id = 0072281

"The Three Musketeers" is a 1973 film based on the novel by Alexandre Dumas, père. Directed by Richard Lester and written by George MacDonald Fraser (famous for his Flashman series of historical comic novels). It was orignally proposed in the 1960s, as a vehicle for The Beatles, whom Lester had directed in two other films. The film was originally intended to run for three hours, but later the film was split in two (resulting in 1974's "The Four Musketeers)". The actors themselves were not informed that they were working on two films simultaneously, only Charlton Heston — handsomely paid for his handful of scenes — did not feel cheated by this duplicity. In 1989, the cast and crew returned to film "The Return of the Musketeers", loosely based on Dumas' "Twenty Years After".

The film adheres strongly to the novel, but it also injects a fair amount of humour. The films were shot by David Watkins, with an eye for period detail. The fight scenes were choreographed by master swordsman William Hobbs and turn the swashbuckling movies of the Forties and Fifties on their collective ear; these are more like brawls, with the combatants using knees, fists, furniture and even wet laundry as often as they do their swords. The humor also can swing to the bawdy, with some double entendres and a bit of silliness that takes full advantage of Raquel Welch's (as Constance Bonacieux) charms, for instance.

Cast

* Michael York as d'Artagnan
* Oliver Reed as Athos
* Frank Finlay as Porthos
* Richard Chamberlain as Aramis
* Jean-Pierre Cassel as ("King") Louis XIII
* Geraldine Chaplin as ("Queen") Anne of Austria
* Charlton Heston as Cardinal Richelieu
* Faye Dunaway as Milady de Winter
* Christopher Lee as the Count De Rochefort
* Simon Ward as the Duke of Buckingham
* Raquel Welch as Constance Bonacieux
* Spike Milligan as M. Bonancieux
* Roy Kinnear as Planchet

ee also

* See The Three Musketeers (film) for a list of other "Musketeer" adaptations.

External links

*imdb title|id=0072281|title=The Three Musketeers
*amg title|id=1:49690|title=The Three Musketeers