D’Artagnan (the dashing Michael York) and his fellow Musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis (brooding Oliver Reed, indulgent Frank Finlay, and dandified Richard Chamberlain) find themselves engaged in a battle between King Louis’ (Jean-Pierre Cassel) forces and a band of religious rebels, that temporarily sees the Musketeers having to rescue an old enemy-turned spy (Christopher Lee’s dastardly henchman Rochefort) from certain death. But it’s not long before the one-eyed swordsman and his scheming lover Milady De Winter (Faye Dunaway) are back to their wicked ways, seeking revenge on D’Artagnan in particular, for events from the previous film (and I do hope you’ve seen it if you intend on seeing this continuation). Meanwhile, the master manipulator Cardinal Richelieu (Charlton Heston) sits on the sidelines, pulling the strings. Geraldine Chaplin and Simon Ward are back as Queen Anne and her lover The Duke of Buckingham, Roy Kinnear is in fine form as bumbling servant Planchet, and Raquel Welch once again impresses as the prat-falling Constance, D’Artagnan’s lover.

This 1974 Richard Lester (“A Hard Day’s Night”, “Help!”, “Juggernaut”, “Robin and Marian”) swashbuckling romp was the infamous film that was intended to be part of one larger film along with the previous “The Three Musketeers” (both films were filmed at the same time). The resultant split into two shorter films caused disgruntled cast members (Christopher Lee’s autobiography doesn’t mention whether he was one of them, but most movie buffs tend to assume that he’d have to have been among the most vocal) unhappy at being paid only for the one film, to sue the director, and they won their case (though were still not paid as much as they would have if they had been paid for two separate films). The abundance of footage makes the subsequent separation a logical choice, really, but Stephen Herek managed to get the nuts and bolts of the story into his one film “The Three Musketeers” just fine.

The funny thing is, that with all this background hoopla, and its origins, the film itself isn’t all that much better or worse in quality than the previous film, though I’d just put this one a nose ahead. This one benefits from the reliably evil pairing of Lee and Satanic-eyed Dunaway (her poison daggers are just about the coolest weapon I’ve seen), who are both excellent, and the relations between these characters and the musketeers are among the film’s strongest moments, even moreso than last time. So strong are Lee and Dunaway that they manage to pick up some of Heston’s slack. Again miscast as Cardinal Richelieu (even moreso than last time, it seems), the imposing but utterly hopeless Heston, who totally botches his part, a role that should’ve gone to any number of other, more capable actors; Anton Diffring, Donald Pleasence (too short?), Sir Peter Ustinov, Frank Thring, Peter Cushing, and maybe even Larry Olivier.

Other things that bothered me here were once again Chaplin (whose ill-fitting wig and vampirish face make her look like a cancer patient), the weakest link in the Anne-Louis-Buckingham triangle (Only Ward’s handsome Buckingham registers among those three), the still-awful Finlay as Porthos (who sadly narrates the film this time), and D’Artagnan’s rather cavalier attitude towards the ladies in this film, which left a bit of a bad taste in my mouth. He’s meant to be a musketeer, not “Alvin Purple”!

Welch, a comic highlight in the first film (along with scene-stealing Spike Milligan- who isn’t here, and the inimitable Roy Kinnear- who is), isn’t given as much screen time here, is still very funny, and extremely easy on the eyes (Her final scene with Dunaway, not something I’ve noticed in any other screen version of “Musketeers”, is very memorable and shocking). Even though I love Gene Kelly’s interpretation of the dashing young Musketeer, York is still the cinema’s best D’Artagnan to date, Reed too is the best-ever Athos (a ro4le he was born for- a brooding, brawling alcoholic!), showing what an underrated, impassioned actor he could be in the right role. Chamberlain doesn’t get much of a good showing this time out as Aramis, it must be said, though I’m not a Chamberlain fan anyway. Lester regular and perennial scene-stealer Kinnear is a hoot in a few scenes of low comedy (his facial reaction to being felt up and his struggling with luggage amidst gunfire are particularly hilarious).

The swordplay is awesome (how could it not be with the cinema’s most prolific swordfighter, racking up at least 17 screen duels and counting, according to Lee’s autobiography), with a spectacular duel on ice (with lots of fumbling about, making it hard for even the best of swordsmen to buckle their swash!), ruined only by the sky and plant-life that seem to suggest blistering heat, and ice/snow that has clearly been shipped in from somewhere else!

This is a good film, better than the previous one (the characterisation and story are better and the tone much, much darker), but I find myself agreeing that it was unfair to split the story into two, short-changing the actors, because it’s really Lester’s fault (and the screenwriter’s) for waffling on unnecessarily with the story. The screenplay by George MacDonald Fraser (“The Three Musketeers”, “Octopussy”, “Red Sonja”), is a bit less focused on the yuks and pratfalls this time, but that’s OK, the film doesn’t need much more of that.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening