Producers Alexander and Ilya Salkind and director Richard Lester originally intended to turn Alexandre Dumas's "The Three Musketeers" into a single epic lasting well over three hours, but this option was rejected as impractical and the filmed material was eventually turned into two separate films (much to the surprise and displeasure of many of the cast and crew, who had only been paid for one film). "The Three Musketeers" came out in 1973 and its sequel the following year. The title "The Four Musketeers" was not a particularly original one as it had already been used for other filmed sequels to the novel; it reflects the fact that D'Artagnan is not actually a musketeer to begin with and fights alongside Athos, Porthos, and Aramis out of friendship, not because he is a member of the same military unit.
"The Four Musketeers" takes up the story where "The Three Musketeers" left off. Cardinal Richelieu continues with his scheming and orders his sidekick the Count de Rochefort to kidnap the lovely Constance Bonacieux, the Queen's dressmaker and D'Artagnan's mistress. As usual, the Four Musketeers (D'Artagnan has now officially been accepted as a member of the regiment) are on hand to try and foil his schemes. Rochefort and the Cardinal's other sidekick, the beautiful but evil Milady de Winter- a splendidly poisonous Faye Dunaway- both play a rather larger part in this film than they did in its predecessor. (The film is also known as "The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge"). One character who is conspicuous by his absence is Monsieur Bonacieux, Constance's husband. Even in the permissive seventies a family adventure film which featured an otherwise clean-cut young hero engaged in an adulterous affair with a married woman might have raised a few eyebrows. Anyone seeing this film without having seen the earlier one would assume that Constance is single.
Although the film attempts to recapture the mood of its predecessor, I have never liked "The Four Musketeers" as much as "The Three Musketeers", and I think that a lot of the blame for this lies with the ending. Although film-makers have sometimes come in for criticism for altering the plot of classic novels to suit the demands of the box-office, this is one case where I think that it would have been better had they made some changes. Keeping Dumas' ending in which Milady murders Constance and is then herself executed by the Musketeers does not fit with the generally comic, light-hearted tone of this particular adaptation. Killing off Raquel Welch's adorable Constance was always going to strike a jarring note, and however evil Milady may have been, the way in which she is dealt with seems particularly cold-blooded. (It should be pointed out that two of those setting themselves up as her judges have personal reasons to hate her, D'Artagnan as the lover of one of her victim and Athos as her ex-husband). The result is a film which is faithful to the letter of Dumas's novel but not to its spirit. 6/10
"The Four Musketeers" takes up the story where "The Three Musketeers" left off. Cardinal Richelieu continues with his scheming and orders his sidekick the Count de Rochefort to kidnap the lovely Constance Bonacieux, the Queen's dressmaker and D'Artagnan's mistress. As usual, the Four Musketeers (D'Artagnan has now officially been accepted as a member of the regiment) are on hand to try and foil his schemes. Rochefort and the Cardinal's other sidekick, the beautiful but evil Milady de Winter- a splendidly poisonous Faye Dunaway- both play a rather larger part in this film than they did in its predecessor. (The film is also known as "The Four Musketeers: Milady's Revenge"). One character who is conspicuous by his absence is Monsieur Bonacieux, Constance's husband. Even in the permissive seventies a family adventure film which featured an otherwise clean-cut young hero engaged in an adulterous affair with a married woman might have raised a few eyebrows. Anyone seeing this film without having seen the earlier one would assume that Constance is single.
Although the film attempts to recapture the mood of its predecessor, I have never liked "The Four Musketeers" as much as "The Three Musketeers", and I think that a lot of the blame for this lies with the ending. Although film-makers have sometimes come in for criticism for altering the plot of classic novels to suit the demands of the box-office, this is one case where I think that it would have been better had they made some changes. Keeping Dumas' ending in which Milady murders Constance and is then herself executed by the Musketeers does not fit with the generally comic, light-hearted tone of this particular adaptation. Killing off Raquel Welch's adorable Constance was always going to strike a jarring note, and however evil Milady may have been, the way in which she is dealt with seems particularly cold-blooded. (It should be pointed out that two of those setting themselves up as her judges have personal reasons to hate her, D'Artagnan as the lover of one of her victim and Athos as her ex-husband). The result is a film which is faithful to the letter of Dumas's novel but not to its spirit. 6/10