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The Three Musketeers (1973)
Rate:
2
Viewed:
10/11
10/11:
Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers is one of my all-time favorite books.
I've read it three times and also the four sequels: Twenty Years After, The Vicomte de Bragelonne,
Louise de la Vallière, and The Man in the Iron Mask. They're the standard of literary masterpieces.
Watching the 1973 version, I was impressed with the willingness to
stay on the true path of the story. However, it's filled with a number of detractions which are mostly unnecessary.
The cast is awful, and I don't see many of the thespians as the famous characters in the book. The worst has to be
Frank Finlay as Porthos. I'm sorry, but I don't sense the Herculean strength in him. Meant to be a swashbuckling adventure
with Machiavellian plots and intrigues, the movie is passed off as a raunchy comedy? The filmmakers must have missed the
point completely. It's safe to say they probably never read the book.
Missing is the numerous characters including Grimaud, Mousqueton, Bazin, Kitty, Count de Wardes, and John Felton. More notably
is the absence of many important subplots and the final tragic ending. Anyone who's of royalty or the Musketeers conducts his
or her private affairs in public when, in the book, that never happened once; they all took their affairs seriously and went
to great lengths to conceal them with the utmost care.
Another is I never got to know Aramis, Porthos, and Athos. In the book, I knew what each stood for and his personal beliefs.
In order to be a Musketeer, one must fight valiantly in some battle. D'Artagnan achieved this feat during the Siege of La
Rochelle which was omitted from the film despite it serving the biggest turning point in his camaraderie with the three famed
Musketeers.
Earlier, d'Artagnan received a sword from his father as a gift before sallying forth for Paris; it was rather money, a horse
of peculiar color, and a letter of introduction. The identity of the Man of Meung wasn't known until end of the book. And of
course, movie projectors didn't exist during the 17th century. Thomas Edison...hello?!? Constance Bonacieux didn't make love
to d'Artagnan before the diamonds plot and perhaps afterwards. She only used him to aid her Queen Anne of Austria.
Constance was later murdered by Milady. Anyway, I can go on and on, but forget it...the filmmakers don't care.
All in all, the 1973 cinematic version of The Three Musketeers does disservice to the one of the greatest novels ever
written.