The Three Musketeers (1973)

(On TV, August 2022) I’m a bit… vexed in trying to write a review of the 1973 version of The Three Musketeers—not because there isn’t anything to say, but because I have the feeling I could just copy and paste my review of its second half, The Four Musketeers, and it would apply just as well to this first film. Maybe a summary? Let’s try this: Every era gets the Three Musketeers adaptation it deserves, and this early-1970s is almost exactly what we’d expect from the era: colour cinematography, lavish costumes, plenty of on-location shooting, but blurry image quality, not-quite-there action choreography, and a sometimes-scattered script. It’s less impressive on a sword-fighting level than previous entries, more in terms of immersion, and far more in terms of humour, especially the pedigree of director Richard Lester (who first intended the project to be a Beatles vehicle). Perhaps the most seventies element of the film is the cast, which merrily has Oliver Reed, Raquel Welch, Richard Chamberlain, Michael York, Christopher Lee, Faye Dunaway and Charlton Heston in the various roles. That’s… quite a cast, and it’s not a cast that could have been assembled at any other time but the early 1970s. (Although, yes, many reunited fifteen years later to film The Return of the Musketeers.) The result is rather enjoyable. It doesn’t have the sweeping cinematography of other attempts, nor the delirious special effects of the 2011 version or Gene Kelly’s athleticism of the 1948 version, or the pure swashbuckling of the Douglas Fairbanks’ 1921 take. But it’s reasonably close to the text (especially if you watch it with its concluding instalment The Four Musketeers), technically proficient enough and tonally consistent with the text. It’s hard to ask for much more… except, perhaps, the newest generation iteration on the same tale, filtered through today’s sensibilities.