DAVID BIANCULLI

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THE THREE MUSKETEERS
May 25, 2019  | By David Bianculli

TCM, 6:00 p.m. ET

 

I really enjoyed this action comedy-drama when it came out in 1973 – and the intervening decades have treated it very well. Director Richard Lester, who is the guy who captured The Beatles so brilliantly in A Hard Day’s Night, brings the Alexandre Dumas novel to vivid life. The settings are alternately sumptuous and squalid, the action veers between slapstick and swashbuckling, and the casting is inspired. Michael York stars as D’Artagnan, the wide-eyed young man who duels, befriends and ultimately expands the ranks of the Three Musketeers – who are played, so playfully and winningly, by Richard Chamberlain (Aramis), Oliver Reed (Athos) and Frank Finlay (Porthos). The bad guys are played by Christopher Lee and Charlton Heston, and the women of the court are played, dazzlingly, by Faye Dunaway, Geraldine Chaplin, and Raquel Welch. If none of that entices you to tune in, I give up.

 
 
 
 
 
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