I feel obliged to share my thoughts about the Musketeer d'Artagnian - the way they are in the mind of someone in his mid-fifties. Nowadays, adolescents doesn't read books as much as we did as kids. We had also bicycle (various models), sarbacanes (blowgun with paper darts), marble or glass balls for playing the Triangle (I don't know the name of that game in English), etc. So, how about my having read the book "Three Musketeers" and its sequels at age 10-13 and being totally fascinated. I didn't know French history and going to the movies was expensive though greatest entertainment at that time. Television was dull, parentage was boring and life was just taking a start.
So, I didn't watch this film exactly in 1973 but some ten years later on video. My first encounter with the Musketeers was in "Le Masque de Fer" (1962) with Jean Marais, which doesn't feature the rest of the Musketeers but is swell. French cinema was making great adaptations of historical novels written by 19th century Romanticists - Alexandre Dumas pere, Victor Hugo, Honore de Balzac, Eugene Sue, Stendhal and others. Altogether, the French were leaders in Adventure genre both in fiction and cinema; Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper, however, were more popular in the Anglophone world.
Nee, I started this review from another angle. Wikipedia gives nice summary plot of the three novels from d'Artagnan Saga: 1. "Three Musketeers", set in 1625; 2. "Twenty Years After", set in 1648; and 3. "Vicomte of Bragelonne or Ten Years Later", set between 1660 and 1673. It was the Age of Louis XIV, the Sun King who was the longest reigning monarch of all times (72 years). Now d'Artagnan, whether a real person or fictional hero, is dubious personality. He died as Marshal of France, at the siege of Maastricht, from a cannon ball (yet I read elsewhere in a critical study that he died in Bastille Prison and was "de facto" the alleged "Man with Iron Mask"; Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, was younger twin brother of Louis XIV and was highly fictionalized but he has proved progeny that ruled as Louis Philippe I of France from 1830 till 1848).
Right or wrong, Alexandre Dumas wrote a great adventure novel that is unsurpassed in its dramatization while little inconsistencies here and there are not important. For instance, Athos died of grieving because his son Raoul was killed by Barbary Coast corsairs in Algiers; Porthos is smashed by stones in a cave while fleeing the royal guards; Aramis escapes by sea and becomes a Jesuit in Spain. This is the fate of the Musketeers.
Lastly, my personal opinion about "Three Musketeers" (1973). I rate it higher than the next installment "Three Musketeers" (1993) only because the performance of Chris O'Donnell as d'Artagnan is so poor. Thank You!
P.S. My first instance doesn't work here. Several weeks after I wrote this review I was curtailed by a friend in conversation. It appears that I have watched even an earlier version of the Three Musketeers story in the 1970s - i.e., "Les 3 Mousquetaires" (1953), but my overall impression as a kid was that this movie was comedy with lot of laughter in it mainly because of the role of Planchet (Bourvil); the latter was a great French comedian, sorrily forgotten today. I haven't watched this 1953 version on video, whatsoever!
So, I didn't watch this film exactly in 1973 but some ten years later on video. My first encounter with the Musketeers was in "Le Masque de Fer" (1962) with Jean Marais, which doesn't feature the rest of the Musketeers but is swell. French cinema was making great adaptations of historical novels written by 19th century Romanticists - Alexandre Dumas pere, Victor Hugo, Honore de Balzac, Eugene Sue, Stendhal and others. Altogether, the French were leaders in Adventure genre both in fiction and cinema; Walter Scott and James Fenimore Cooper, however, were more popular in the Anglophone world.
Nee, I started this review from another angle. Wikipedia gives nice summary plot of the three novels from d'Artagnan Saga: 1. "Three Musketeers", set in 1625; 2. "Twenty Years After", set in 1648; and 3. "Vicomte of Bragelonne or Ten Years Later", set between 1660 and 1673. It was the Age of Louis XIV, the Sun King who was the longest reigning monarch of all times (72 years). Now d'Artagnan, whether a real person or fictional hero, is dubious personality. He died as Marshal of France, at the siege of Maastricht, from a cannon ball (yet I read elsewhere in a critical study that he died in Bastille Prison and was "de facto" the alleged "Man with Iron Mask"; Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, was younger twin brother of Louis XIV and was highly fictionalized but he has proved progeny that ruled as Louis Philippe I of France from 1830 till 1848).
Right or wrong, Alexandre Dumas wrote a great adventure novel that is unsurpassed in its dramatization while little inconsistencies here and there are not important. For instance, Athos died of grieving because his son Raoul was killed by Barbary Coast corsairs in Algiers; Porthos is smashed by stones in a cave while fleeing the royal guards; Aramis escapes by sea and becomes a Jesuit in Spain. This is the fate of the Musketeers.
Lastly, my personal opinion about "Three Musketeers" (1973). I rate it higher than the next installment "Three Musketeers" (1993) only because the performance of Chris O'Donnell as d'Artagnan is so poor. Thank You!
P.S. My first instance doesn't work here. Several weeks after I wrote this review I was curtailed by a friend in conversation. It appears that I have watched even an earlier version of the Three Musketeers story in the 1970s - i.e., "Les 3 Mousquetaires" (1953), but my overall impression as a kid was that this movie was comedy with lot of laughter in it mainly because of the role of Planchet (Bourvil); the latter was a great French comedian, sorrily forgotten today. I haven't watched this 1953 version on video, whatsoever!
