Tomorrow's (Aug. 22) star in TCM's Summer Under the Stars is Geraldine Chaplin. I happen to have recently watched one of her movies that's not part of tomorrow's tribute. But then, I noticed that I happen to have one of tomorrow's movies on my DVR, so I made a point of watching that: the 1973 version of The Three Musketeers. You can see it at 12:30 PM.
Chaplin isn't the star here, and she's certainly not one of the musketeers. Top billing goes to Oliver Reed as Athos, and to Michael York as d'Artagnan. This version of Dumas' story presents d'Artagnan as a naïf from the countryside during the reign of Louis XIII who gets the crazy idea that he could become one of the King's Musketeers. So he sets off for Paris, eventually running into the three men we know from the book: the aforementioned Athos, Porthos (Frank Finlay), and Aramis (Richard Chamberlain). And wouldn't you know it, but d'Artagnan immediately gets himself challenged to duels by each of them.
However, they're interruped by some of the guards representing Cardinal Richeliue (Charlton Heston). Richelieu was the power behind the throne in 17th century France, and wanted to consolidate that power even more, so he had a thing about the Musketeers and wanted to destroy them. The Musketeers and d'Artagnan win the battle with Richelieu's men, and the other three make d'Artagnan an honorary member of their merry band. On to Paris and the king and queen (that's Geraldine Chaplin playing the part of the queen).
In addition to the adventure, there's a lot of love in the movie, as this version of the film is more true to the original novel and thanks to the end of the Production Code even bawdier than previous versions could be. D'Artagnan has started an affair with the queen's dressmaker, Constance (Raquel Welch), while the queen herself is about to get involved with an old boyfriend, the English Duke of Buckingham (Simon Ward). As a token of remembrance, the queen gives the Duke of Buckingham an old necklace that the king had given her but that she doesn't wear anymore.
What the queen doesn't know is that Milady (Faye Dunaway), one of her ladies-in-waiting, saw this, and Milady lets Richelieu know, so that he can get one over on the king by putting him in an embarrassing situation involving the necklace that's no longer there. It's up to the Musketeers to get the necklace back to the queen, but the Duke of Buckingham is already back in England and Richelieu's men are waiting along the way to kill the Musketeers....
When director Richard Lester started shooting The Three Musketeers, the producers' original plan was to make an epic film. But the producers realized that wouldn't work and decided to split things up into two features (which ticked the actors off no end since they sure didn't get paid for two features). As such, it feels like there's some plot missing. Or, at least a lot of what would be plot is instead replaced by ever more elaborate set-piece swashbuckling. What's left isn't exactly bad, but it does feel slightly off, as if it's both too complex and having gaps at the same time.
The swashbuckling, however, means that the action rarely stops, and if you like swashbuckling, then you're definitely going to like this movie. Also, the second movie made from the rest of the material, The Four Musketeers, follows at 2:30 PM. I haven't seen it yet; maybe it will fill in some of the gaps from the first movie.
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