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When The Three Musketeers(1973) came to television, I watched it with my parents. I didn’t much care for it. However, it did inspire me to buy the book. I ended up buying an unabridged version (albeit of an English translation) at a time when “digest” versions of books seemed to be the rage, especially for younger readers. My teachers, at the time, suggested the book was too advanced for my reading skills. They were probably correct… I never did make it through much of the book as a youngster. However, I still have that book with me and eventually I did read it cover-to-cover.
With the film being free-on-Prime at the moment, I decided it was a good time to re-watch it – maybe see if my young-boy self was correct in his critique.
The first problem is in the source material. The novel is early-Victorian writing – having come out at a time when the elements of fiction were still being developed into their modern form. Furthermore, as popular as Alexandre Dumas was in his time, he was never considered particularly “good,” literature-wise. What this means is that the fundamentals of the story fall somewhat short by the measures of modern story telling. Most notably, the characters and the situations in which they find themselves do not feel realistic. The film dealt with this by portraying the entire story as farce. Of course, comedy is even more generational than story telling as a whole, so that decision may have wound up dating the film even more. My point is, if one was to write a story about court intrigue in France during period of the Thirty Years’ War, it probably wouldn’t look much like The Three Musketeers. In fact, it might look a lot like The Iron King or, heaven forbid, A Game of Thrones.
Setting aside any problems with the story, there are always issues trying to translate any well-known novel to the big screen. It is never possible to capture the nuance of a written work and any screenwriter/director will want to adapt a story to the unique advantages of the medium. This goes double if there is a perceived need to update the story for the current audience. The decision to emphasize comedy is but one of many such changes. There are also additional scenes added for the movie, particularly featuring visual and action elements. It’s also worth noting that the story of the film takes us only about half-way through the book, the remaining narrative being reserved for the sequel The Four Musketeers, a story in its own right*.
That long introduction is my way of leading up to this: from the story standpoint, the film falls short no matter how you slice it. Lovers of the book will be unhappy with the reinterpretations whereas those not familiar with the book will wonder why the story seems so goofy. Particularly today. For the youth (and aspirational youth) of the 1970s, the Musketeers were more of a staple of popular culture. Earlier films, cartoons, comic books, and the aforementioned abridged (particularly for children) stories meant we were often shouting “All for one and one for all**” while waving sticks at each other. For this audience, what counts is the visual presentation – the costumes, the action, and a sense of excitement. On this level, the film probably was successful (if not necessarily for the young me), although it might feel less so as it ages.
Where the old me will appreciate more than the young me ever could is in the film’s value as a historical costume drama (or comedy, I suppose). It was a major studio undertaking, obviously having had its share of budget to work with. It’s a colorful and well-filmed picture. Now, I’m no expert on period dress but my impression is things are reasonably accurate – particularly considering it is not a historical story. One scene that stood out to me in particular is where D’Artagnan is crossing from France to England and is shown in what looks to me to be a period-accurate vessel. My next thought is that, while the boat seems to be moving along nicely, there was no wind in the sails. In fact, sharper eyes than mine caught the tow rope being visible in the final film. Ah well.
On the other hand, I also got the impression that the much of what I see may have been cobbled together in the editing sessions rather than filmed deliberately. There is an emphasis on action and the physical that results in the actors charging to-and-fro while smacking each other with implements, blunt and sharp. In fact, I also read that director Richard Lester liked to film everything, and with multiple cameras, so as to be able to capture more angles, more action, and more spontaneity. This technique adds to the lack of substance that the 2021 me sees, although this is only one factor.
Finally, I have to say that the music is awful. Not poorly performed, mind you, but poorly conceived. Fortunately, it is used relatively sparingly – mostly to add to the pomp and circumstance of royal court. One particularly grievous example is an attempt to reproduce Renaissance dance music with modern (i.e. 70s) melodic tonality. Horrific! I can’t say the experimental compositions of today’s world are any better than those of the 60s and 70s. What is improved is that filmmakers no longer feel compelled to burden their films with such enlightened musical compositions. Granted, the result sometimes is a little too much repetition – orchestral scores using the same four chords in every dramatic film.
The other impression that stayed with me since I was a little kid was the choice of actors. To my eye, the ensemble was composed of all the big names of the early 1970s (Michael York, Charlton Heston, Richard Chamberlain – to highlight a few). However, it was also the popular “grown up” actors. These would not be the stars of my generation – the were stars of the “old folks.” The one exception is Raquel Welch, who was definitely a sex-symbol, even for those of us too young to fully understand what the term meant. It’s interesting, too, that Welch won the only award given to an actor from this film – a Golden Globe for best actress in a comedy. Did she really stand out that much, or was the fact that she was Raquel Welch that earned her the win? Anyway, I have to wonder how much the choice of actors simply looked, to a kid, to be part a film targeted at my parents and their generation? And did that contribute to my dissatisfaction?
The 1973 production of the The Three Musketeers was positively received in its time and continues to boast high rankings to this day. Internet comments suggest it is the best English-language adaptation of the book to film. To that point, I cannot comment. Not without watching a half-a-dozen or so other versions of the story, many of which are very bad indeed.
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*The movie was filmed with the intention of making a single epic-length feature which covered the entire book. Production pressures resulted in the The Three Musketeers being released as a part one, with part two still being assembled from additional footage. This created a crisis for the actors who, having acted in two films would have expected to be paid for two films. Lawsuits followed.
**Unless I missed it, the sole use of the famous phrase (popularized by Shakespeare in his poem The Rape of Lucrece) was to justify the dividing up of money ill-gottenly gained. The “communism among thieves” theme was probably appropriate for the times. Dumas, by contrast, uses it as a “back the blue” statement – a “formule dictée par d’Artagnan” to encourage the Musketeers to follow his questionable lead. Shakespeare’s context suggests that “all” is not a group of people but rather “everything,” as he discusses the conflict between living a life of honor versus seeking a life of comfort. For kids in 1974, “All for one and one for all” was just a battle cry – possibly inspired by Mickey Mouse’s take on the Musketeers.