Picking is tough. I really wanted to aim for something that was really different from what had been done already, and preferably something that someone else would be unlikely to pick. Which pretty much limits me to the golden days of the American Musical, which (thanks to my mother, the dancer) I happen to know and love so well.
Naaaah. Let’s have another derivative late-1960s/early-1970s action flick instead!
To be clear: This is the 1973 Richard Lester-directed Alexander Salkind film with Oliver Reed, Raquel Welch, Michael York, Christopher Lee, Faye Dunaway and that guy from the gun club. This one. Not that second-rate abortion of a film that hit theaters in 1993.
Oooh, this movie (and it’s sequel, which was filmed at the same time and they really should be watched together as one long movie) is one of my favorites of all time. Wish I had it to watch along with y’all!
Perhaps we could even include comments on the second part (Four Musketeers) in this discussion? As Athryn already said, it was filmed at the same time and was considered one movie before it got Miramaxed into 2 parts to cash in more (see Kill Bill…)
It’s baffling to me that they don’t carry this one. It isn’t like there aren’t good DVD versions of it out there; it isn’t like it’s a second-rate movie, one nobody’s heard of, or one with a cast of unknowns or has-beens.
Watching this on HDNet right now. Hell of a cast – although I’ve seen so many of them in such striking roles that I keep picturing, say, D’Artagnan terminating runners or Richelieu bringing down the stone tablets to the damn dirty apes. Not that they’re performing poorly or anything, it’s just what happens when you don’t know who’s going to be in a movie, and actors you recognize keep popping up. (Well, other than Heston, who seems like an odd choice for Richelieu)
Raquel Welch, on the other hand, makes me picture something else entirely.
Yes, Fraser, who died earlier this year, wrote the screenplay for Richard Lester’s Three & Four Musketeers, and The Return of the Musketeers (from Dumas’ second Musketeer novel, Twenty Years After), the latter of which I don’t think was every released theatrically in the U.S., but pretty much had the entire cast back including one left for dead.
It was the closest to the actual novel all the many films, though perhaps a bit more silliness. I had an aversion to 19th century novels because of the tedious nature of Dickens, but it got me to read Dumas and I was pleasantly surprised that despite its length, it was a very enjoyable read.
I highly recommend Fraser’s Flashman novels if you like historical fiction and disreputable anti-heroes.
