By
David Mermelstein
David Mermelstein
Few works have sparked the cinematic imagination as routinely as Alexandre Dumas’s 1844 novel “The Three Musketeers.” A hasty count indicates some 40 movie versions (the first and latest from France, in 1903 and 2023) and many more made just for television. But by common consent, the best yet is Richard Lester’s “The Three Musketeers” (1973) and “The Four Musketeers” (1974), originally conceived as a single film with intermission but ultimately released as two separate pictures. Both have now been fetchingly restored in 4K and this week debut on home video in that form as part of the Criterion Collection. (Enthusiasts may select a two-disc Blu-ray set or a four-disc 4K UHD/Blu-ray combo pack.)
The Philadelphia-born Mr. Lester worked primarily in the U.K. and remains best known today for “A Hard Day’s Night” and “Help,” his mid-1960s filmed collaborations with the Beatles. At an early stage, there was apparently some thought of casting the Beatles as Dumas’s sword-fighting trio plus their protégé D’Artagnan—an idea quickly quashed.
Instead, thanks in large part to the independent European-based producers known collectively as the Salkinds (specifically Ilya and his father, Alexander), a host of Hollywood and British stalwarts not only assumed the leads but also most of the supporting roles. Three seasoned actors in their prime—Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain and Frank Finlay—were cast as the world-weary musketeers: Athos, Aramis and Porthos. Michael York, fresh from his central role in the soon-to-be Oscar-winning “Cabaret,” nabbed the plum part of the callow D’Artagnan (ultimately, the fourth musketeer), who spends nearly as much time bedding beautiful women as engaging in derring-do.
Yet these iterations of 17th-century masculinity were in many ways outshone by their colleagues in character roles. The Salkinds already had a professional relationship with Raquel Welch, the very essence of feminine sexuality at the time, so her participation—as Constance, the queen’s dressmaker and the object of D’Artagnan’s ceaseless affections—was non-negotiable. Who knew then that this screen goddess, often as not wooden in dramatic parts, had talent as a comedic foil? Mr. Lester brought this gift to the fore by having her underplay the yuks.
Landing Faye Dunaway after “Bonnie and Clyde” but before “Chinatown” and “Network” was a coup, and she portrays the ruthless Milady de Winter, an agent of much misery, with such unforgettable hauteur that it’s hard to imagine anyone else inhabiting the role. Christopher Lee lends her lover, the fearsome one-eyed Comte de Rochefort, exactly the kind of menace that made him irreplaceable on screen for so many decades.
Mr. Lester opted for subtlety in selecting the royal couple. Dubbed into English by Richard Briers, the prolific French actor Jean-Pierre Cassel proves convincingly wry and appealingly oblivious as Louis XIII. And Geraldine Chaplin brings an appropriately cool mien to Queen Anne, who cares little how her actions affect others, let alone the nation.
But the real casting masterstroke was placing Charlton Heston, one of Hollywood’s leading leading men, in the pivotal role of Cardinal Richelieu, the power behind the throne and the figure discreetly controlling most of the saga’s action. Heston plays Richelieu with a welcome light touch, giving just the right weight to sotto-voce comments, asserting authority by never raising his voice and letting an arched eyebrow or a sidelong glance serve his character’s needs. The actor was initially courted to play one of the musketeers, but both Heston and Mr. Lester soon came to appreciate that veering from the obvious was the smarter move.
In other ways, too, these films depart from the predictable without ever sacrificing what’s elemental. So, yes, there’s plenty of acrobatic swordplay in these pictures—much of it seemingly influenced by the martial-arts movies then all the rage in Hong Kong—as well as gorgeous, period-accurate costumes, all but Welch’s courtesy of Yvonne Blake, to say nothing of Brian Eatwell’s splendid production design. (The films were shot entirely in Spain, though tells are few.) But to all this Mr. Lester has added his trademark antic charm and off-kilter wit. No one familiar with his earlier pictures will fail to spot those qualities here: the offscreen ambient noises and cross-talk; the use of multiple cameras for a single scene; and the strange objects that routinely appear, including a working organ in the middle of a garden and a carousel powered by peasants. And who can forget that royal chess match in which live dogs substitute for rooks, knights, pawns and the like?
Let’s have a word, too, for the screenwriter, the Scottish author George MacDonald Fraser, whose early “Flashman” novels, with their outlandish bounder protagonist, served almost as dry runs for his spirited condensing of Dumas’s massive chronicle into two efficient pictures, each running less than two hours. It was Fraser who, when Mr. Lester asked how a particular scene should look, said, “like a Breughel painted by Rembrandt”—a comment the director clearly took to heart.
None of this makes these pictures high art, but they are consummate entertainment. Few of us want a meal of Bergman and Bresson every night. Sometimes, the menu calls for romance, intrigue, broad comedy, gaudy settings, lavish dress, and, of course, sexy women and dashing men. And when you want to dine out on that, Mr. Lester is happy to serve you.
