The Appropriate Tune: 'Detention' by Muskets
There have been a lot of French people over the years, so it should come as no surprise that at least a couple of them have contributed to pop culture. Victor Hugo, Gaston Leroux, Jules Verne, the one guy who invented Lupin, Alexandre Dumas, and probably a couple of others. While Dumas may not be .a household name these days, his stories still get around; The Three Musketeers, The Count of Monte Cristo, The Man in the Iron Mask, The Corsican Brothers, in an age where most the population couldn’t read and the novel was the hip new fad Dumas was the Stephen King of his generation, pumping out story after story to great critical and commercial success. He was also known for having sex with dozens of women, so cheers to him I guess.
As a recovering literature nerd The Three Musketeers was indeed one of my conquests, right alongside Ivanhoe and Le Morte D’Arthur, but it’s been years and my memories of it have likely been crossed with that one Mickey Mouse movie, so this Marathon will also conveniently double as a refresher course. I also decided to go with the 70’s adaptation because hell, I’ve already got a truckload of 70’s genre movies under my belt, might as well add another to the pile.
Released in 1973, The Three Musketeers was written by George MacDonald Fraser, produced by Ilya Salkind and directed by Richard Lester, based on the novel of the same name by Alexandre Dumas. Michael York stars as d’Artagnan, a young farm boy who travels to the big city in order to realize his dream of becoming one of France’s legendary Musketeers, like his father before him. He immediately fails at this, robbed and humiliated besides, but manages to make fast friends with three musketeers: leader Athos (Oliver Reed), ebullient Porthos (Frank Finlay) and graceful Aramis (Richard Chamberlain). His closest friend however is the beautiful Constance Bonacieux (Raquel Welch), but that might turn out to be a problem. Not because she’s married or anything like that, although she is, but because she’s close personal friends with the Queen of France, who herself is currently getting hot and heavy with the Duke of Birmingham, PM of England. Scandalous, or at least it will be if the villainous Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston) manages to get his way. d’Artagnan may not be a musketeer but he’s going to be getting some hands-on experience as he and his friends work to thwart the Cardinal and his agents and avert an international incident. ‘All for one and one for all’ is the rallying cry of the musketeer, and these men practice what they preach.
Any preconceived notions that period pieces are clean, sterile affairs is thrown out the window with Lester’s Three Musketeers. Dumas’ novel is a classic of high adventure, and that’s exactly the kind of energy this film exudes -- a wildness that feels like when you’re just the right level of intoxication at a really fun party. When you get a fight scene in this movie, which is often, they aren’t the highly choreographed tests of skill that we might associate with these kinds of films, they’re more like chaotic brawls. Our heroes will fight with swords, sheets, sticks and fists, they’ll swing on ropes on top of foes and throw dirt in their eyes, and although it doesn’t look all that flashy in terms of fight choreography it makes up for it in its variety (every fight scene feels unique) and in its rough-and-tumble realism (they fight more as you’d expect people in those times actually would). You could probably paint a through-line between this and the action set pieces of films like Pirates of the Caribbean, but Three Musketeers is a lot more ramshackle in its execution, which I think is to its benefit. It really feels like anything could happen in this movie, and that is often the case.
Lester’s Musketeers is also pretty damn funny, which is not something I expected going into it. Not unintentionally funny like older movies are sometimes judged to be, The Three Musketeers is built with comedy in mind and that comedy lands more often than it misses. You’ve got physical comedy as you might expect but then you’ve got some straight-up skits and running gags, like Constance being a klutz for no reason, in that zany, easy listening way that you only find in 70’s comedies. Screwball though it may be however it doesn’t go so far as to remove any sense of tension as a full-fledged comedy film would. There are stakes, these characters are fighting for their lives and they don’t always get away scot-free, and even if the situations the characters find themselves in can be goofy, the characters take the world as it is without a side eye to the audience. Which was the smart move, as even if Lester and the crew were taking the piss out of Dumas a bit they captured the freewheeling, barrel chested fun at the heart of his story as well, and based on what little I’ve read about Dumas as a person I think he would’ve appreciated the bawdy shine put to his work.
This is a damn fine cast too, I’ve got to say. Aside from the folks I’ve mentioned you’ve also got Christopher Lee as the Count de Rochefort, Chinatown star Faye Dunaway as Milady de Winter, British comedy legend Spike Milligan as the elderly innkeeper and Constance’s husband Monsieur Bonacieux and Lester regular Roy Kinnear as d’Artagnan’s bumbling servant Planchet. Michael York was definitely the right person for the role of d’Artagnan, he’s got the physicality to pull off the stunts and choreography and his joy de vivre blunt attitude works for the action and comedy portions of the film in equal measure. I was most surprised by Charlton Heston as Richelieu however. Most of the film roles I’d seen him in up until this point had all the subtlety of a brick, but he’s quite subdued here and he pulls off the criminal mastermind role very well.
My main point of contention, aside from the fact this film set in France with French characters based on a French novel is packed with actors speaking in English accents, is one of pacing. This film is almost two hours long, and for the most part it manages its time well enough that you don’t notice it, but there was definitely a point around the midway point where I felt ‘god damn, how much of this movie is left again?’.Of course the plot kicks off properly after that, but I think the laissez-faire nature of the film leads to that impression. Anything can happen, but when will that thing be important, that sort of thinking. Also it’s never nice to sequel bait unless you’re serious about it, I’m still waiting for Buckaroo Banzai 2.
The Three Musketeers gets an easy recommendation. Not since our last Jackie Chan film have I watched an action film that was just plain fun to watch. Not too violent, not too raunchy, not too goofy, Richard Lester strikes the pitch-perfect tone and gets just the right crew to pull it off. Put it on your watch queue if you have one, and if it’s already on there move it to the front of the line, you’ll be in for a great evening. Make sure to invite your friends too, because of the obvious Musketeer ‘all for one and one for all’ parallel. They won’t appreciate your wit but they probably will enjoy the movie.
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