The Four Musketeers (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Four Musketeers
1975 movie poster
Directed by	Richard Lester
Produced by	Alexander Salkind Pierre Spengler
Written by	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 by	Michel Legrand Lalo Schifrin
Cinematography	David Watkin Paul Wilson
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	December 25, 1974 February 26, 1975
Running time	108 min.
Country	USA
Language	English
Preceded by	The Three Musketeers
Followed by	The Return of the Musketeers
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

The Four Musketeers is the title of a 1974 Richard Lester film, which follows upon his film of the previous year, The Three Musketeers, and covers the second half of Dumas' novel. See The Three Musketeers. Fifteen years later, the cast and crew returned to film The Return of the Musketeers, loosely based on Dumas' Twenty Years After.

The actors were not made aware that they were working on two films simultaneously (The Three Musketeers was released in 1973). Charlton Heston — who was handsomely paid for what was essentially a cameo role — was the only actor who did not feel cheated.

This is much the darker of the two films. There is less of the lighthearted horseplay seen in the first film. Constance is murdered by Milady, Rochefort is slain by d'Artagnan, and Milady is executed by a headsman as the Musketeers look on. We also get the lugubrious backstory of the tangled relationship between Athos and Milady, and an extended prison episode in which Milady uses her feminine wiles to turn the Duke of Buckingham's manservant into a deranged assassin. The ending, in which d'Artagnan triumphs over Richelieu's plotting and becomes an officer (at the cost of all his friendships with the Musketeers), is rather abrupt.

As compensation, the climactic swordplay scenes are a glorious blowout, starting with a free-for-all outside the convent where Constance is hiding that encompasses all manner of stunts and slapstick, as well as a classic faceoff between Athos and Rochefort. This leads directly to a no-holds-barred deathmatch between d'Artagnan and Rochefort, with cinematographer David Watkins fully exploiting the beautiful lighting possibilities of the chapel where the long antagonism between hero and head villain is finally decided.