The Three Musketeers
1974 movie poster
Directed by	Richard Lester
Produced by	Alexander Salkind Ilya 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
Cinematography	David Watkin
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	December 11, 1973 March 29, 1974
Running time	105 min.
Country	UK / US
Language	English
Followed by	The Four Musketeers

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 originally 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.

[edit] 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

[edit] See also

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

[edit] External links

• The Three Musketeers at the Internet Movie Database
• The Three Musketeers at Allmovie

v • d • e Films directed by Richard Lester 1960s The Running Jumping & Standing Still Film (1960) • It's Trad, Dad! (1962) • The Mouse on the Moon (1963) • A Hard Day's Night (1964) • The Knack …and How to Get It (1965) • Help! (1965) • A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966) • How I Won the War (1967) • Petulia (1968) • The Bed-Sitting Room (1969) 1970s The Three Musketeers (1973) • Juggernaut (1974) • The Four Musketeers (1974) • Royal Flash (1975) • Robin and Marian (1976) • The Ritz (1976) • Butch and Sundance: The Early Days (1979) • Cuba (1979) 1980s Superman II (1980) • Superman III (1983) • Finders Keepers (1984) • The Return of the Musketeers (1989) 1990s Get Back (1991)

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